Should I Buy Additional Water Rights For My Residential Lot?

If you can afford it I would do it. Water rights in Colorado are hard to come by. Also I think it would increase the value of the home.
 
I'd do some in depth research. Make sure the rights are legit and HOA can't interfere. No idea of how CO water rights work.
Is it piped in water? Well?
I'm wary of HOA's and Ass's in general. But $7500 sounds reasonable to me.

Hell,you can barely punch a drill hole for $10k these days.

I have 2 wells in NM with 3-ac.ft. allotment total. The real value of my land is the water & rights.
 
In 2004 I had a friend that wanted to invest some money. I told him to buy water rights here in Colorado. I think he thought I was crazy. I wish I would have had the money to buy them back then. You could buy water shares for $5k
 
marksjeep said:
Who actually holds the right? You, the HOA, or are you pulling an allotment from a supplier such as an irrigation district? How senior is the actual right? What is the source of the water?

Lots of ifs. If it's a senior right (say an irrigation provider) and you will have water available during dry years, because they are in priority, it might be worth it. If it's an junior right which will be curtailed during the first dry spell, the right might not do you any good.

Lots of ifs.
Click to expand...
I am no expert, so I will try to answer the questions with what I think is the pertinent information from the info I was given:
- It is a "recorded deed"
- "Increases the well permit"

I googled the name of the water company given by the HOA, "Palmer Divide Water Company" and didn't find much. Maybe an LLC set up just to complete these transactions?
 
I grew up in the High Desert of Oregon East Side - you always buy water. Whatever water you can buy you do it.
Doesn't mean you have to fence it, doesn't mean you have to deny other people, but you definitely want to buy all the water you can.
 
Couple things that come to mind... The water allocation you have seems quite generous already from a design standpoint of a water system.

It's been a number of years since I designed a water supply system, but generally single family homes are located around 6-8gpm when computing water usage. It depends on the jurisdiction. SInce you're on a private system, it was probably quite conservative.

I suspect that there is a surplus of water, so they're trying to offload it to justify maintaining the system. With water efficiency increasing, and "design" guides slow to catch up. I would expect that many people in your sub-division are in a similar consumption rate. So they looked at the remaining volume and assumed X% will buy some more and are hopeful they can off-load it.

However, just because you are not using it all doesn't mean the next guy won't (added value to your house should you resell it). But i doubt having an adition 50% capacity will be a selling point. The way things are going I suspect that many states will start implementing more strict water restrictions so the usage could be throttled.

I know little about water rights, but it seems like the Johnny-come-lately guy "downstream" gets what's left, regardless of the amount allocated. I'm not sure how it works with a well compared to surface rights, but I suspect if your well starts to effect flows from another there could be cause? When there isn't enough to go around it really doesn't matter how much you have claim to.

Personally, I wouldn't buy it.
 
I'm a Tex-Okie, but I DO have some idea about "water rights".
The senior/junior "rights" thing is definitely interesting.
SOOO... just my opinion... ONLY!

1) $7500, to me, is a princely sum to pay for water rights.
2) where I live right now, I had to buy into a "cooperative". I have a well, but the water isn't potable.
3) when I bought in, I paid $500 for the meter, but it took them 4 years to run the pipeline by me (actually, the line is ON my property!)
4) my eldest wanted to build on part of our 40 acres. A meter is now $1500!
PLUS, they charge a couple of hundred bucks to run a hydraulic test to be certain that portion of the system can handle another meter.
5) had I bought 2 meters instead of one, this would not be a problem now.

JMNSHO!
If you can swing the payment, buy now!
...that is if all the other t's are crossed and i's dotted.

Something tells me it probably won't be (isn't?) just a general, simple, across the board, additional share. Probably have more restrictions, if's, and's and but's than Carter had "little liver pills"! LOL!
Not too often these days folks offer a good deal without a hitch! 👀!
 
This all blows my Michigan brain.

I know nothing about water rights, but what’s the downside to buy more? If you do your homework and it’s legit, can’t you resell someday if you wanted to? If so I would say it’s a no brainer.
 
Bambistew said:
I know little about water rights, but it seems like the Johnny-come-lately guy "downstream" gets what's left, regardless of the amount allocated. I'm not sure how it works with a well compared to surface rights, but I suspect if your well starts to effect flows from another there could be cause? When there isn't enough to go around it really doesn't matter how much you have claim to.

Personally, I wouldn't buy it.
Click to expand...

i suspect based on OPs location he's probably dealing with denver basin groundwater - designated nontributary water that state statute says will not affect nearby streams and therefore largely fully consumable and entirely not subject to priority administration. while technically nonrenewable there's still plenty to go around. not a huge concern.

now, state statute also says that any aquifer that is not designated nontributary (which is like 90% of the groundwater in the state) then the water right holder for the groundwater well is legally obligated to replace any and all, in timing and amount, out of priority depletions to the nearest stream due to well pumping, i.e. the well IS subject to priority administration just like surface water is. the engineering and modeling for such HAS to go through and be approved by a judge in water court where any and all parties that would like to oppose the applicants water right have opportunity scrutinize and cross examine all engineers responsible for the modeling. THIS would NOT be the problem of the homeowner in this case, the water right is already a water right and this would already have been taken care of. the water right is just now being portioned out and deeded to the homeowners who will then effectively be pro rata water right owner. exercising this court decreed plan to replace depletions should be the responsibility of the HOA/the HOA's water rights consultant.

but i'm guessing it's nontributary denver basin groundwater
 
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Yes, buy it. I recently settled in a lawsuit over my water rights here in The Peoples Republic of California. I agreed on using a max of 5 acre feet a year out of my well. The city had sued me wanting all the rights so they could flush all the water down the river into the ocean for Steelhead. I will never use 5 acre feet but if they start rationing at least I’ll start with 5 acre feet. And now that we made the deal I think they’ll have a harder time taking the rights away again.
 
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TOGIE said:
i suspect based on OPs location he's probably dealing with denver basin groundwater - designated nontributary water that state statute says will not affect nearby streams and therefore largely fully consumable and entirely not subject to priority administration. while technically nonrenewable there's still plenty to go around. not a huge concern.

now, state statute also says that any aquifer that is not designated nontributary (which is like 90% of the groundwater in the state) then the water right holder for the groundwater well is legally obligated to replace any and all, in timing and amount, out of priority depletions to the nearest stream due to well pumping, i.e. the well IS subject to priority administration just like surface water is. the engineering and modeling for such HAS to go through and be approved by a judge in water court where any and all parties that would like to oppose the applicants water right have opportunity scrutinize and cross examine all engineers responsible for the modeling. THIS would NOT be the problem of the homeowner in this case, the water right is already a water right and this would already have been taken care of. the water right is just now being portioned out and deeded to the homeowners who will then effectively be pro rata water right owner. exercising this court decreed plan to replace depletions should be the responsibility of the HOA/the HOA's water rights consultant.

but i'm guessing it's nontributary denver basin groundwater
Click to expand...
^This guy knows what he's talking about.

Yes, the HOA Board has been pursuing this for years and it went through court.

Here's a snippet from the HOA's Water Decree from 1994:
1617217920690.png

Thanks for all the input so far!
 
COEngineer said:
^This guy knows what he's talking about.

Yes, the HOA Board has been pursuing this for years and it went through court.

Here's a snippet from the HOA's Water Decree from 1994:
View attachment 179038

Thanks for all the input so far!
Click to expand...

oh nice, you do have the decree in front of you. yeah dawson is denver basin and is sorta nontributary. as is evidenced by the super creative name "not nontributary"

the nuanced version of nontributary water is not nontributary. i bet that decree stipulates a 2% replacement obligation, which is typically satisfied with everyone's leech field.
 
As others have said, I think the devil is in the details. It’s worth doing your due diligence on.
The west isn’t getting wetter and the demand for water isn’t getting smaller.

You know the saying about whiskey/water.
 
TOGIE said:
oh nice, you do have the decree in front of you. yeah dawson is denver basin and is sorta nontributary. as is evidenced by the super creative name "not nontributary"

the nuanced version of nontributary water is not nontributary. i bet that decree stipulates a 2% replacement obligation, which is typically satisfied with everyone's leech field.
Click to expand...
Just received an e-mail with more info from the selling LLC. He says, "...these rights are senior rights that were owned by the original developer."

He goes on to confirm that the LLC was created for the sole purpose of making these sales to the homeowners.
 
COEngineer said:
Just received an e-mail with more info from the selling LLC. He says, "...these rights are senior rights that were owned by the original developer."

He goes on to confirm that the LLC was created for the sole purpose of making these sales to the homeowners.
Click to expand...

senior is sort of misleading there

misleading because any well is going to be junior as all wells postdate any true senior rights that were appropriated before the irrigation well was even invented. you can typically think of a true senior right as pre 1890, or 1900 if you wanna be generous. and further misleading because denver basin groundwater is in it's own bubble outside of the priority system.

you'll probably see some stuff in that decree about the decreed annual use limits, which are function of the volume of the water under the area of the owned land used to decree the right and a 100 year aquifer depletion factor (i.e. the annual use of the well shall not be a rate that would deplete the volume in less than 100 years) for the nontrib stuff and likely see the rule that not more than 98% of the water is to be consumed for the not nontrib stuff

so it's a good water right. can be used for anything, successively to extinction, and on lands not belonging to the well itself. but seniority has nothing to do with it's goodness so to speak. it gets to operate regardless of it's seniority, so even better. there's likely even a paragraph in that decree that talks about the water not being adminsitered in accordance with the priority system.

overall a great water right that will be valuable until the denver basin runs dry, which will probably be long after you've sold the house and died of extreme old age ;)

still whether or not it's worth it, or will increase the value of your property enough to make it worth it, i really have no idea for sure. but my gut tells me that value of that water will certainly increase
 
My parents recently paid $20,000 for a tap after getting into a legal battle over a shared well that was not being shared by the guy whose property it was on, water is Colorado is expensive and makes people do stupid things, $7500 seems like a bargain.
 
I don't know shiite from shinola. But I do know that investment firms have been snatching up a lot of water rights in western CO. Depending on the particulars, water rights of any type could have increasing value over the years, possibly based on perception rather than reality.
www.nytimes.com

Wall Street Eyes Billions in the Colorado’s Water (Published 2021)

Investor interest in the river could redefine century-old rules for who controls one of the most valuable economic resources in the United States.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
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