No, there is no specific or hard-and-fast time limit in the law for when they have to pay out an agreed-to settlement, other than the statute of limitations for contracts (since a settlement agreement is a contract), which is 6 years in your state: that is, you cannot enforce the settlement more than 6 years after it is signed. When you feel that too much time has gone past and you believe they are not going to pay, your recourse would  be to sue them for "breach of contract" to force them to pay--but don't wait longer than 6 years to do this. At over a month, it is right to start getting concerned; if not paid (or you don't have a firm committment to when you will be paid) after two months, that's when you start considering taking action.For future reference: you should make sure that settlement agreements have a time period stated within them for payment; if the agreement indicates when they must pay, then once they pass that time, you can take action to enforce. That way, you will have a firm deadline to work with.