A lease offer just landed in your mailbox. Now what?

First, breathe — the deadline is usually softer than it looks

Almost every lease offer arrives with urgency baked in: a signing deadline, a “limited” bonus, a sense that hesitating costs you. Most of that pressure is technique, not truth. If an operator wants your acreage today, they’ll generally still want it in two weeks, after an attorney has glanced at the paperwork. Real opportunities survive a phone call to a professional.

The faster someone needs your signature, the slower you should go. Pressure is a sales tactic, not a fact about your minerals.

Confirm what they think you own

A lease offer is also a clue: someone believes you hold minerals worth drilling. Check that their description matches your understanding — the county, the legal description, and the net acres they’re crediting you. Errors here are common, and they flow straight into your bonus and royalty, so it’s worth getting right before, not after, you sign.

If you’re not certain what you own, that’s normal, and it’s fixable. Our guide on what mineral rights are walks through the paper trail, or you can hand us a county and a family name and we’ll trace it at our cost.

Know the handful of terms worth pushing on

You don’t need to master the whole lease — you need to focus on the few terms that move real money. The royalty fraction, a Pugh clause to free undeveloped acreage, a no-deductions (cost-free royalty) provision, and a depth clause are the usual high-value asks. Our lease-terms guide explains each one so you can recognize them in the document in front of you.

Get one professional set of eyes

An oil-and-gas attorney in the state where your minerals sit is the single best few hundred dollars you can spend here — they’ll catch the clauses that quietly cost thousands over a lease’s life. If you may be subject to compulsory pooling (where the state can include unleased owners in a drilling unit on statutory terms), they’ll also tell you how that changes your leverage.

And know that leasing isn’t your only option

A lease offer is a fork in the road, not a one-way street. You can negotiate and sign it, you can hold out, or — if certainty appeals more than upside — you can explore selling instead. We’re a buyer, so we’ll be honest about our angle: we’re glad to value your minerals, but we’ll also tell you plainly when taking a good lease and keeping them is the smarter play for you.