# The Louisiana Mineral Owner's Guide | Berlin Royalties > A free plain-English guide for Louisiana mineral owners: deductions, payment deadlines, forced pooling, severance and income tax, whether you can lose your minerals, and ten questions for any buyer. Source: https://www.berlinroyalties.com/guide/louisiana/ Publisher: Berlin Royalties, a veteran-owned oil and gas mineral and royalty buyer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, buying for its own account since 2014. Call or text 918-984-1645. License: free to quote and cite with attribution to Berlin Royalties and a link to the source URL. Mineral Owner's Guide ยท Louisiana ## The Louisiana mineral owner's guide. Louisiana is the only state where you can lose your minerals simply because nobody drilled for ten years. It is not a technicality and it has no equivalent anywhere else. [What Are Mine Worth?](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/free-valuation/) [Ask a Landman, Free](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/ask-a-landman/) This is the whole guide, on one page, free, with nothing gated. It covers what you own, the Louisiana 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. ## 1. What you actually own 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: - The right to **develop**, including surface access - The right to **lease**, called the executive right - The right to receive **bonus** - The right to receive **delay rentals** - The right to receive **royalty** 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](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/non-participating-royalty-interest/), [overriding royalties](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/overriding-royalty-interest/), and the [glossary](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/glossary/). ## 2. Can money be taken out of your Louisiana check? **Not for an unleased owner**, and this was settled recently in the owner's favor. In *Self v. BPX Operating Co.*, 2023-CQ-01242 (La. June 28, 2024), the Louisiana Supreme Court held that negotiorum gestio does not apply to a unit operator selling an unleased mineral owner's share, so the operator cannot deduct post production costs from an unleased owner. If you are leased, the lease governs. 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](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/letter-templates/) have the wording and the [statement decoder](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/royalty-statement-decoder/) explains every line on the stub. ## 3. When Louisiana has to pay you No statutory deadline; the lease governs, with 30 days to cure after written notice. There is no fixed interest rate, but **willful nonpayment can mean double royalties, interest, attorney fees, and dissolution of the lease**. The statutes are **La. R.S. 31:137 to 31:140**. | **Minimum payment rule** | No statutory threshold located. || **Time limit to sue over an underpayment** | 3 years for royalty underpayment, the shortest of any state where we buy | 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](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/unclaimed-royalties/). ## 4. Can you lose your Louisiana minerals? **This is the headline.** Louisiana does not recognize a perpetual severed mineral estate. What you own is a **mineral servitude**, and under **La. R.S. 31:27** a mineral servitude is extinguished by **prescription of nonuse after ten years**. When it prescribes, the minerals revert to the landowner. Drilling operations or production interrupt prescription and restart the clock. ## 5. If they drill and you are not leased Yes, through the Commissioner of Conservation. Under **La. R.S. 30:10** as amended in 2022, the risk charge is **200 percent** of the owner's allocated share of costs for unit wells, substitute unit wells and cross unit wells, and 100 percent for alternate unit wells and subsequent operations. The drilling owner must send a risk charge notice by registered mail. The reason any of this exists is the [rule of capture](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/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. ## 6. What Louisiana takes **Severance tax.** Oil and condensate is 12.5 percent of value for wells completed before July 1, 2025 and 6.5 percent for wells completed on or after that date. Incapable oil is 6.25 percent and stripper oil 3.125 percent. Gas is taxed volumetrically at a rate reset each July. **When you sell.** Louisiana taxes nonresidents on Louisiana source income. Louisiana uses parishes rather than counties, and its civil law system means terminology throughout your documents differs from the rest of the country. See [taxes when you sell mineral rights](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/mineral-rights-capital-gains-tax/), 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. ## 7. Inherited minerals and probate in Louisiana Louisiana succession is a civil law proceeding and differs meaningfully from common law probate. Forced heirship rules can also apply. 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](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/inherited-mineral-rights/), [selling before probate is done](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/sell-inherited-minerals-probate/), and [transferring inherited minerals](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/transfer-inherited-minerals/). ## 8. Where the Louisiana records are Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources, Office of Conservation, for well records, and the Clerk of Court in each of 64 parishes for land records. Our [well records by state](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/well-records/) page links every state's free public search, and our [operator directory](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/operators/) covers more than 38,000 operators with contact information refreshed weekly. ## 9. How valuation actually works 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](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/mineral-rights-value/). ## 10. Ten questions to ask any buyer - Are you buying for your own account, or brokering this to someone else? - What entity will appear on the deed, and can I look it up? - Show me your valuation. What did you assume for price, decline, and remaining locations? - How many undrilled locations did you count, and at what probability? - Who pays title work, document preparation, and recording? - Is there a minimum interest size, and are you buying part of what I own or all of it? - How long is this offer open, and what happens if I say no? - Will you tell me if you think I should keep it? - Is there money sitting in suspense on this interest, and who keeps it? - Who at your company will answer the phone in six months? You are welcome to use every one of these on us. That is the point of publishing them. ### Send us what you have. We will tell you what it is. 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](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/free-valuation/) [Ask a Landman](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/ask-a-landman/) ## More on Louisiana - [Selling mineral rights in Louisiana](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/louisiana/), with the full state detail - [Royalty payment laws by state](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/royalty-payment-laws/), with statutory citations - [Division orders: what to check before you sign](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/division-order/) - [Compare your options before selling](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/compare-selling-options/) and [when not to sell](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/when-not-to-sell/) - [Got an offer letter?](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/got-an-offer/) and [before you sign](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/before-you-sign/) - [Owner's guides for the other states we buy in](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/guide/) Last reviewed August 2026. Statutes, rates, and case law change, and where Louisiana 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 Louisiana.