Money is a good thing, but it’s not the only thing

Many residents who have formed neighborhood groups to deal with energy companies seeking drill sites have found that by negotiating as a committed bloc of homeowners they’ve been able to obtain bonus and royalty terms higher than they could have possibly obtained as individuals. And that’s a good thing!

However, while financial terms are normally the primary concern of most negotiations, they aren’t the only areas of the contract where concessions can be obtained. Many neighborhoods have lobbied for and received concessions regarding safety issues, environmental considerations, and much more.

I am posting links to gas lease contracts that other neighborhoods in Tarrant county have drawn up with energy companies after successful negotiations. Those who are interested can read through them and see the outcome of their talks are spelled out in the terms and conditions of the contract. (Note: unless otherwise indicated the following contract links will take you directly to the PDF or Word document. FYI.)

Tanglewood (Fort Worth)

Berkeley Place/Ryan Place (Fort Worth) [from Blogging the Barnett Shale]

Mistletoe Heights (Fort Worth) [from Blogging the Barnett Shale]

Pantego and (some adjacent portions of) Arlington final contract [website]

I’ll update with more as I receive them.

Mark your calendars! Homeowners group gas lease meeting set

The Homeowners Group meeting on gas lease/gas drilling has been set! We will be meeting next Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 7:00pm. Please encourage your next door neighbor to attend! Give your friends who are homeowners in our area a call and ask them to join you! The meeting details are as follows:

Homeowners Group Gas Lease Meeting

When: Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 7:00pm

Where: Burton Academy

Address: 4611 Kelly Elliot Rd. (click here for a map)

We will try to provide as much information to you as we can before the meeting date so this can be a short, yet productive meeting. We look forward to seeing you (and a friend, or two or three!) there next Thursday night!

Neighborhood groups joining forces

Randy Stroud is a neighbor who lives just north of Coronet Estates. He has been successfully obtaining lease commitments from his neighbors (behind the Gene Schrickel park – 4500 Park Springs Blvd.) to join in as a group in order to obtain a better lease deal from the energy companies and their representatives.

After meeting Randy and seeing and discussing the great work he’s been doing, we all decided that both his group and ours will benefit greatly from teaming up and joining forces.

Therefore, from this point forward Randy’s group and Bob’s group will be working as one unified coalition. We will use our increased size to further reach out to our neighbors who have still not signed gas leases. We want to encourage and demonstrate to them that by standing firm with us as a group we can increase our leverage in the upcoming negotiations. As an even larger group of committed neighbors, we will be well positioned to advocate for a better deal than could be achieved as individuals.

And so, we welcome all members of Randy Stroud’s group. Let’s keep growing!

Resident Information Form

Click here to download Resident Information Form

(Read the UPDATED information in the previous post)

If you did not fill out the online information form, please do the following:

1. Click the link above and download the information form
2. Fill out the short form
3. Sign and date it
4. Bring the form with you to the Neighborhood Group gas lease meeting on:

Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 7:00pm at Burton Academy on 4611 Kelly Elliot Rd.:

If you cannot attend our gas lease meeting please mail the signed form ASAP to:

Bob Haelle at 4012 Coronet Ln., Arlington, TX 76017

Thanks for your help.

Coronet Estates Neighbor Action Needed! Please Read On

[from an email I sent out to the group earlier]

Coronet Estate Neighbors and Friends:
In preparation for our upcoming homeowners meeting (I’ll announce details tomorrow or Thursday at the latest) I would like to have certain things in place.

One of the most important negotiating tools that we need when we get ready for face-to-face negotiations with the gas leasing company is a complete list of homeowners who are standing united in this effort to secure the best lease terms possible.

At the appropriate time we want to be able to provide hard copies comprised of a very long list of neighbors in Coronet Estates and adjacent neighborhoods who have decided to join the effort to negotiate the optimal lease for our mineral rights.

However, in order to do this we need your help!

Below you will see a link to a secure form where you can fill out some information that we need to have for our negotiations. It is a short form that only asks for basic information. Please take 5 minutes to fill out this form.

Click here to fill out the Coronet Estates Homeowners form

UPDATE:  The leasing companies have indicated to us that when we begin face-to-face negotiations they will be looking for signatures from all of our group members as a way for them to verify who is participating in our group. 

For this reason, we are discontinuing the online homeowners information collection.  Instead, we are providing a form (Word document) that you can download, fill out and sign, and mail to:

Bob Haelle at 4012 Coronet Ln., Arlington, TX  76017

If you already filled out the online form, we will mail or drop by a form that is pre-filled with the information you provided.  The only thing you would need to do is sign it and mail it to the address above.

 We apologize for the inconvenience, but we want to have all of the right information in the correct formt when we approach the leasing companies for negotiations.

Thanks for understanding.

Thanks in advance for your support and for sticking with us. Together we will succeed!

Ready for a Neighborhood meeting? We need your input!

I’ve set up a very small survey (3 questions) to get a feel for what would be the best day of the week and time to hold our neighborhood gas lease meeting.

Would you take 5 minutes to complete this survey so we can schedule our meeting ASAP? Also, I’ve placed a comment box on the survey where you can add your burning questions about gas leases, drilling, negotiations, or any other pertinent topic. We’ll compile the survey results and questions and advise you when the meeting will be.

Click Here to take survey

Update:  Survey is now closed.  Thank you for your participation. 

Criminal Mischief in Coronet Estates

(This post does not pertain to gas leases or drilling but it does involve many of our neighbors and may get your blood boiling. – RG)

Sometime over the holiday weekend some disrespectful and irresponsible individual(s) engaged in the destruction of several of our neighbors’ properties. This person(s) drove their vehicle onto the front lawns of no fewer than 16 homes, spinning the tires leaving tracks and, in some cases, ruts.

My family and I first noticed the tire marks on our neighbor’s lawn on Saturday morning. We drove around the neighborhood to see if we could tell what path the vandals had taken. The mischief seemed to begin on Bama Dr. near Green Oaks. I counted 12 properties that were damaged on that street alone! The perpertrators then turned left onto Coronet Lane and the quickly turned right onto Celtic Drive, right onto Darrow Lane and then left onto Rye Glen. Two homes that sit on corners lots had the entire length of their lawns ruined as these lowlifes drove across the grass to traverse from one street to the other.

If anyone was able to get a description or a license plate number of the vehicle involved in this crime please notify the police.

By the way, for future reference, here is some information about Coronet Estates as kept on file by the Arlington Police Dept:

• Our PRA (Police Reporting Area) is number 395
• This police Beat is number 380
• The assigned officer is Sgt. Latesha Watson (badge #2115)
• She reports to Lt. Shawn Williams (badge #1173)
• We are in W (West) district, Sector T

Watch your neighbor’s back and your neighbor will watch yours.

Homeowners Heads Up: Find out about “Subordination”

Mike Lee of Blogging the Barnett Shale has an important story that you should be aware of. The “subordination” agreement is a legal release provided by your mortgage company and almost always for a fee – which you can try to negotiate. This should be taken care of before you sign any gas lease papers to avoid any surprises after the fact. Read Mike’s story here. [links to Word document]

Our neighbor Jim W. gave Coronet Estates Homeowners Weblog a “heads up” about this. He says:

“The mortgage company release [or subordination agreement] is an item that can potentially take a significant chunk out of any signing bonus. I’ve written my mortgage company to get an estimate on the fees and I encourage everyone else to do the same. It will be a challenge getting to the right person in Customer Service. The CS agents haven’t a clue and will insist on your sending in a completed lease agreement in order to give you a fee amount. Insist on talking to a supervisor, and if they can’t get you to the proper department to get this information, insist on talking to the next higher level in the company until you get good information. Don’t give in or give up.”

Word to the wise! Thanks, Jim.

Wanna know what’s going on in nearby neighborhoods?

Blogging the Barnett Shale is a great resource to find out what other neighborhoods in Arlington and Tarrant county are doing to come together for the purpose of getting a better deal for their mineral rights. They also provide updates on negotiations between neighborhoods and leasing/gas companies.

Many of these neighborhoods are just like ours, with no formal neighborhood association but nevertheless determined to come together to strike a great gas lease deal. Read what some of these neighborhoods are doing and get inspired!

Back to the business of gas drilling and gas leases

I hope everyone spent a great couple of days giving thanks with their friends and families. Time to get back down to business. In this post I am going to point you to some resources at the Fort Worth League of Neighborhood Associations (FWLNA) website. They have some very good information about gas drilling and gas leases.

Check out “Gas Drilling 101” [direct link to PDF download]. Some of the details are tailored to their particular area but the overall information is applicable to most all neighborhoods. The presentation covers Gas Drilling Basics, Lease Considerations, Financial Terms and Royalties as well as Tips for Neighborhoods. A very good resource containing good explanations, photos, charts, diagrams and other valuable information.

There is also a presentation by a local land attorney entitled “Lease 101: What to Know Before Signing a Lease” [direct link to PDF download] that also has some good tips and information.

Go here to check out the rest of the FWLNA Gas Well Drilling Resource page.