Should a royalty check have come by now?

The first payment from a new well is due 120 days after the end of the month of first sale. After that, payment follows the lease or a written agreement. If those are silent, oil is due 60 days after the end of the month it was sold and gas 90 days after. This is Natural Resources Code section 91.402(a).

When a payor may hold money without interest

Check that the payor has your current address and that the check was not sent to an old one. Then ask in writing, by certified mail, about the payment. Under section 91.505 the payor must answer by certified mail within 30 days of receiving the request. If it still does not pay, section 91.404 asks for written notice by mail before a suit, and the payor has 30 days after it receives that notice to pay or to state a reasonable cause.

Set three records side by side: the papers that name your interest (a division order, a deed, the appraisal roll in your name), the state's production record for the lease, and the payments you actually received. A lease that sold oil in a month where your papers name you and no payment arrived is worth a written question. It is a question, not a finding: the reason is often a hold, an old address or a change of operator.

Check a statement against the state record

Yes, in the cases the statute covers. If payment is not made in the time limits for any reason other than those in section 91.402(b), the payor must pay interest from the end of the time limits at two percentage points above the rate the New York Federal Reserve Bank charges depository institutions on loans, unless a written agreement sets a different rate. Interest does not run while payment is withheld for a reason in 91.402(b), and it stops when the payor delivers the money to the Comptroller.

How late-payment interest works

Within 120 days after the end of the month the first production from the well was sold. A well that first sold oil in March is due by July 29. The payor may ask you to sign a division order first, and it may hold the payment, without interest, until you sign one that contains only the terms the statute allows.

What a division order may contain

Section 91.404 makes written notice by mail a prerequisite to a lawsuit for nonpayment, and gives the payor 30 days after receipt to pay or state a reasonable cause in writing. A suit is brought in the county where the well is. If a suit under the subchapter is filed, the court includes reasonable attorney's fees in a judgment for the plaintiff, and if the actual damages are under $200 it adds enough to make the total $200 (section 91.406).

Yes, after the first payment. Section 91.402(a) says payment follows the lease or a written agreement, and the 60 and 90 day limits apply only if they are silent. Read the royalty clause of your lease and any division order for a payment time before you count days.