Inherited mineral rights rarely stay with one person. A parent passes them to three kids. Those kids pass them to their children. Before long, a single property has a dozen owners with fractional interests, and someone in the family needs to keep track of it all.

If you're that person, here's how to approach it in MinRight.

Start With the Properties

Enter each mineral property separately. Record the legal description, county, state, acreage, and lease status. This is the foundation everything else connects to.

If the family owns interests in five different sections across two counties, that's five properties. Enter them all, even if some are currently unleased or non-producing. Knowing what you have is the point.

Add the Owners

Use the Owners section to create a record for each family member who holds an interest. Include their name and contact information. Then link each owner to the properties they have an interest in, with their specific ownership percentage.

MinRight tracks ownership interests across five right types: executive, develop, bonus, rental, and royalty. For most inherited situations, you're mainly concerned with the royalty interest. Enter the decimal or fractional interest for each owner on each property.

Track Payments by Well, Not by Owner

When a royalty check comes in, log it under the well and property it belongs to. Enter the gross revenue, deductions, taxes, and net amount from the check stub. You don't need to split the payment across owners in the payment record. The division order and ownership interests handle the allocation.

What matters is that the payment is logged accurately and attached to the right property. If a family member wants to know what their share was, you can look at the payment and apply their decimal interest.

Use One Installation, Not Many

MinRight is designed for one person to manage the family's interests. You don't need a separate copy for each sibling. Enter all the properties, all the owners, and all the payments in one place. When a family member asks about their interests, you can pull up the information and share it.

If multiple family members want to independently track their own share, they can each run their own copy of MinRight with just their interests. But for most families, one person managing one database is simpler.

Keep It Updated

When ownership changes (a family member sells their interest, passes away, or transfers to a trust), update the ownership records. Note the date of the change and the reason. This keeps the picture current and avoids confusion when the next generation needs to pick things up.

The Goal

The goal isn't perfect accounting. It's having one place where the family can see what they own, who's operating on it, and what it's paying. When tax season comes around, when someone gets a letter from an operator, or when the family needs to make a decision about leasing, the information is there instead of scattered across a dozen email chains and filing cabinets.