The Haynesville Shale is stirring up a new controversy in Bossier Parish.
A lawsuit was filed in Bossier District Court Monday against James M. Brown Builder, Inc, Brown's Property Development, Inc, James M Brown Real Estate, Inc & Brown Builders, Inc. Audubon Oil & Gas Corp and Twin Cities Development LLC were also named in the suit, as well as individual members of the Brown family.
The suit was filed seeking class certification. If this is granted, it means that anyone who purchased property from any of the Brown Companies in Bossier Parish would qualify to benefit from the suit.
The suit was filed by Charles & Carol Casares, Darbi Rice, Brian Rice, Melvin Edwards III, Joyce Edwards and 'other similarly situated persons'.
The lawsuit alleges that the various companies sold them property and that the deeds contained no mineral reservations. One of the plaintiffs was told by Twin Cities Development that they could not execute a lease on their property, because the Browns owned the rights.
Here's what happened.
In July of 2006 the 4 Brown Companies executed a mineral deed to 4 of the individual owners, giving them ownership of any mineral interests on property that the companies owned at that time. The subdivisions listed on the mineral deed are:
Bossier Golden Meadows
Plantation Trace
Plantation Trace Estates
Plantation Trace Garden Homes
Northgate Village
Brown Office Park
Green Street
Shady Grove Unit I replat
Brownlee Estates
Northgate Temperature Controlled Subdivision
Southgate Estates
Southgate Estates Unit 6 replat
Sunflower Plantation
Barnes Addition
as well as various undeveloped properties with metes and bounds descriptions.
The named plaintiffs bought their houses and lots in December of 2006 and in early 2007, 6 months after the companies had transferred all mineral rights to the individual members of the Brown family.
On June 10, 2008, 2 of the individual Brown owners executed an oil & gas lease to Twin Cities Development that covered 28 different tracts, some of those tracts including multiple subdivision lots.
Among those lots were the Casares, Rice and Edwards property.
The plaintiffs said that the Brown companies, at the time of sale, did not reserve mineral rights on the properties they purchased.
I'm sure that the Brown's defense will be that the companies did not own any mineral rights to reserve, as they had already been transferred.
We will update you on this case as it progresses.
Do you have the names of the individuals named in the lawsuit?
ReplyDeleteWe also bought property from the browns. Mr. Brown himself was at the sale. I was selling another home in Caddo and wanted to maintain the rights on least one property. The title company said no records were found when they did a search. This was because the form I since have found out doesnt pass the 4 corners test of louisiana law. We asked Mr. Brown himself in front of 3 witnesses about the rights. He said that the people he bought the land from may still have them. At that time the title company asked when it was purchased and informed us that because it was longer than 10 years we owned them because they revert to the purchaser. Mr. Brown never clarified that he had deeded them to himself. If they had come by them honestly or had been upfront at closing I wouldnt be so angry. I have since talked to 28 other families. Of them 5 had a simular closing with a brown representative. In my mind doesnt this constitute fraud?
ReplyDeletePlease list some contact info to help me.I also bought property from the browns.My property is located in Bellaire.
ReplyDeleteThe attorneys for the folks suing the Browns are J. Todd Benson and Lee H. Ayres.
ReplyDeleteMr. Benson's address and phone number are Denny, Gerhardt & Benson, 1726 Elizabeth Avenue, Shreveport, LA 71101 and (318) 869-1221.
Mr. Ayres contact information is Ayres, Warren, Shelton & Williams, 333 Texas Street, Suite 1400, Shreveport, LA 71101. (318) 227-3500.
Thank you for the info. I will be giving the lawyers a call.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know when this is going to court?
ReplyDeletehowdy all,
ReplyDeleteI am newcome here and , worrying to earn proficiency of some things here.
Sorry for my bad english i m Belarus
Thanks.
[url=http://www.camspotadult.com]camspotadult.com[/url]
hey there and thank you for your information – I've definitely picked up anything new from right here. I did however expertise a few technical points using this website, as I experienced to reload the website a lot of times previous to I could get it to load properly. I had been wondering if your web hosting is OK? Not that I am complaining, but slow loading instances times will sometimes affect your placement in google and could damage your quality score if advertising and marketing with Adwords. Anyway I am adding this RSS to my email and could look out for much more of your respective exciting content. Make sure you update this again very soon.
ReplyDeleteMy blog post; Louis Vuitton Outlet