Oklahoma wittholding o&g revenue after 'x' number of year

Found another lease in Oklahoma I have an interest in..think this one came from my grandfather.

It produced for 20 years then a judge ordered the Lease 'pooled'. I found out about this approx a month ago.

Here is my question: after x-number of years if an owner is not located or comes forward to claim the funds can Oklahoma keep it. ie. I no longer have the right to any proceeds because I did came long in x-numbers so the funds were given to the state of Oklahoma?

Pull both of these to check to see if there's any funds being held. If I remember correctly, if there's royalty payment(s) due to someone they're unable to locate, the money first goes into an account with the OCC, then after a specific amount of time (if the owner still isn't found) the funds are transferred to the state treasury - with the state taking out a small percentage of the proceeds when claimed by the rightful owner.

If you don't find anything, call the oil company to check thing out.

Hope this helps a little.


From OCC's home page click on the 'Conducting Business Tab' (pull down menu) then click on 'Unlocated Mineral Owner' where you can do a search.


This is the state treasury website which is pretty self-explanatory.

thanks Kaye.. appreciate this.

The main list is strictly Oklahoma Citizens.. BUT the have not forgotten Texans

>they have phone numbers & email to contact a departments who can assist Texans. From what I understand the funds are always somewhere, it may cost you to get the revenue after 15yrs but it should be there.

Just a quick review, the article states after 15 yrs royalties are turned over to a govt department who then controls the money but it id still yours.. and like you said there is probably a fee involved.

They have forms to print out & submit...any & everything I could imagine needed to finalize the return of revenue.

_excellent, thanks Kaye

Last year we found that our grandfather had royalties that had ended up in the OK state treasurer's unclaimed property account. Evidently these royalties sat the bank for quite a while then went to the treasurer's office for more than 30 yrs. We had to go through a simple probate in OK since our parents had moved to CA and their estate never went through probate. We just had to pay legal fees the state did not take a percentage of the money.

man, John that is a perfect example of what i was going for...telling you thanks is not enough in showing my appreciation.



Glad the info helped.

Exactly correct. You may be able to use a summary probate which can typically be wrapped up in 90-100 days. If your grandfather had a will that was probated in another state you should be able to use an ancillary probate. Lots of us attorneys are willing to work on a flat fee basis.

By the way one source to search for the funds that may be available is: http://www.occeweb.com/MOEASearch/

Our summary probate took about 30 days.

the Probate was one of my biggest concerns..an issue that could have kept the issue going on for years

First thing you should find out is if your grandfather's estate was probated and if your parents estate was probated. Even if the probate was done in another state it may be accepted in Oklahoma. The reason we had to go through probate is that my parents estate was handled by a family trust in CA and a family trust isn't acceptable in OK.