Probate
The court process that validates a will and settles a deceased person's estate, including the transfer of mineral and royalty title to heirs.
Probate is the court-supervised process of proving a deceased person's will (or, if there is no will, administering the estate under state law), paying debts, and legally transferring assets to the rightful heirs or beneficiaries. For mineral owners, probate is how recorded title to a mineral interest or royalty interest moves from the decedent's name to the heirs' names so the new owners can sign leases and collect checks.
Mineral and royalty interests are notoriously easy to miss in a probate inventory. They often produce no income for years, may sit in a state far from where the person lived, and rarely show up on a bank statement. When minerals are left out, the heirs end up holding title that never legally cleared, which surfaces later as a title defect a buyer or operator will flag.
Procedures and costs vary by state, and probate opened in the home state often must be followed by an ancillary probate in any other state where the minerals sit. When no probate was ever done, families often rely on an affidavit of heirship instead. This is general information, not legal advice.