Colorado's 45 percent pooling consent threshold gives an unleased owner more genuine leverage than almost anywhere else in the country.
This is the whole guide, on one page, free, with nothing gated. It covers what you own, the Colorado law that decides what lands in your bank account, whether your minerals can be taken from you, what happens if a well is drilled and you are not leased, what you owe when you sell, and the questions worth asking any buyer including us.
Almost every confusing thing in oil and gas comes from the fact that the mineral estate is not one thing. It is a bundle of five rights that can be split apart and sold separately:
A mineral interest is all five. A non-participating royalty interest is only the fifth, with no say in leasing and no share of bonus. An overriding royalty interest is carved out of a particular lease and dies when that lease dies. A working interest takes revenue net of costs and, unlike all of the above, can lose you money.
Which one you hold changes the value, the tax treatment, and who has to sign what. Start here: NPRIs, overriding royalties, and the glossary.
**Generally not the costs of making gas marketable.** Colorado adopted the first marketable product rule in *Rogers v. Westerman Farm Co.*, 29 P.3d 887 (Colo. 2001), which places on the lessee the cost of getting gas into marketable condition. *Clough v. Williams Production RMT Co.*, 179 P.3d 32 (Colo. App. 2007), follows it.
Your first move if the deductions look wrong is a written demand by certified mail, keeping the receipt, because the certification is what starts the clock. Our free letter templates have the wording and the statement decoder explains every line on the stub.
First payment is due within **6 months** after the month of first sale. Ongoing is 60 days for oil and 90 days for gas. Late payment carries **twice the Kansas City Fed discount rate**, simple, from the date of each sale. The statute is **C.R.S. § 34-60-118.5**.
| Minimum payment rule | $100 or less for a 12 month period may be paid annually. |
| Time limit to sue over an underpayment | 6 years |
A stopped check very often is not a stopped well. The usual causes are a balance under the minimum threshold, a title change putting the interest in suspense, an unprobated death in the chain, an address the payor could not deliver to, or a change of payor after an acquisition. That money does not disappear; it sits in suspense and eventually goes to state unclaimed property. See unclaimed royalties.
We found no Colorado dormant mineral act, and Colorado is absent from the multi state surveys. A severed Colorado mineral interest does not appear to lapse for nonuse.
Yes, and the terms changed materially with SB 19-181 in 2019. **Owners of more than 45 percent of the mineral interests to be pooled must have joined in the application** before the Commission can pool. That threshold is real leverage for an unleased owner, because it means a small group can hold up an application in a way they cannot in Oklahoma.
The reason any of this exists is the rule of capture: a well on the tract next to yours can legally drain oil and gas from under your land, and you cannot sue anyone for it. Pooling is what converts being drained into having a share. The expensive mistake is almost never the pooling itself. It is missing the election deadline, which turns a real choice into a default nobody picked.
Severance tax. Graduated on gross income, topping out at 5 percent above $300,000, but there is a large **ad valorem credit** for property taxes assessed on production, and stripper wells under 15 barrels per day of oil or 90 Mcf per day of gas are exempt. The effective rate is well below the headline.
When you sell. **Colorado withholds 2 percent of the sales price when a nonresident sells Colorado real property for more than $100,000**, under C.R.S. § 39-22-604.5. Minerals are real property, so a mineral conveyance is covered. Colorado's individual income tax is a flat 4.40 percent and nonresidents are taxed on Colorado source income.
See taxes when you sell mineral rights, and if you inherited the interest, understand the stepped-up basis before you sell anything: your basis is generally the value at the date of death, not what your grandparents paid, which frequently means far less taxable gain than owners expect.
Colorado is a Uniform Probate Code state with informal probate available.
The single most common thing we see is an interest still sitting in the name of someone who died twenty or forty years ago. It is fixable, it is cheaper to fix than to leave, and we pay for the curative work as part of a purchase. See inherited mineral rights, selling before probate is done, and transferring inherited minerals.
Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission for well records, and the County Clerk and Recorder in each of 64 counties for land records. Colorado is the one state where the regulator can actually adjudicate a royalty payment dispute.
Our well records by state page links every state's free public search, and our operator directory covers more than 38,000 operators with contact information refreshed weekly.
Producing royalties are priced off cash flow and decline. Non-producing minerals are priced off location and activity. Almost every offer you receive is built the same way: take your last twelve months of royalty income and apply a multiple.
That method has one predictable failure, and it is worth understanding because it is where most owners lose money. It assigns a value of zero to anything that has not happened yet. A permit next door. An undrilled bench under your section. A refrac on an old wellbore. A unit being formed. None of that is in last year's income, so none of it is in the offer.
Ask any buyer, including us, to show you their remaining location count and the reasoning behind it. If they will not break it out, they are pricing your check rather than your minerals. See how mineral rights are valued.
You are welcome to use every one of these on us. That is the point of publishing them.
A check stub, an old deed, a division order, a pooling order, or just the county. We will identify the interest, value it with the arithmetic shown, and tell you honestly if you should keep it. Free, no obligation, and no mailing list.
Get a Free Valuation Ask a LandmanLast reviewed August 2026. Statutes, rates, and case law change, and where Colorado law is genuinely unsettled we have said so rather than filling the gap. Berlin Royalties is a mineral buyer and a landman shop in Tulsa, not a law firm or a tax advisor, and this guide is general information rather than advice about your interest. For a dispute worth real money, hire a lawyer in Colorado.