Last verified Jul. 2026

Check what water a property really carries

Before you start: what you are looking for

A parcel can carry water in four different ways, and they are not interchangeable:

• A decreed water right — a court-confirmed right with a priority date.
• Shares in a mutual ditch or reservoir company.
• A well permit, which is not a water right.
• A service connection from a municipal or district provider.

Your job is to establish which of these exist, and then verify each on its own terms.

The seven-step check

1. Get the legal description

Not the street address — the section, township, range and quarters, from the county assessor or the deed. Colorado water records are organized by legal description, and everything downstream of this step depends on having it right.

2. Find the structures near the parcel

Open the DWR Map Viewer, navigate to the parcel, and note every ditch, well, reservoir and headgate on or adjacent to it — with the WDID for each. The map tutorial walks through this in detail.

Remember what this does and does not prove: a ditch crossing the land usually carries somebody else's water.

3. Pull the decreed rights on those structures

Search each WDID in DWR net amounts. For every record, note the appropriation date, the administration number, whether the amount is absolute or conditional, the decreed uses, and the associated case numbers. Reading a decree explains each field.

4. Check the wells separately

Search DWR well permits by legal description. Read the status and the permitted uses. On a parcel under 35 acres, expect the permit to be household-use-only — which prohibits outdoor irrigation entirely C.R.S. § 37-92-602(3)(b)(II)(A). The well permit tutorial covers the search.

5. Trace the water's chain of title — separately from the land's

This is the step that catches severance, and the step most buyers skip. Water deeds are recorded at the county, but a standard title commitment on the land will not reliably tell you whether the water was sold off in 1998. Have the water's own chain examined, and confirm the recorded conveyances match the decree you found in step 3.

6. Call the ditch company

If shares are involved — and in northern Colorado they very often are — the company is the only authoritative source. Confirm the certificate number and share count, whether assessments are current, whether the shares are pledged or encumbered, and what the bylaws say about transfer and about changing use. Shares move on the company's books, not by deed.

7. Ask how often the right is actually in priority

A priority date is meaningless without the call regime on that reach. Check the active calls tool and then ring the division engineer's office and ask directly how often this right has been out of priority over the last ten years. It is free, it takes one phone call, and it is the single most decision-relevant fact in the whole exercise.

Ten things that look like water rights and are not

1. A ditch crossing the property.
2. A headgate, even one with the seller's name on it.
3. A stock pond, or a pond that has always been full.
4. Green pasture in July — it may be irrigated under a lease that ends at closing.
5. A well, without reading its permitted uses.
6. "Water rights included" in the listing.
7. "Water rights appurtenant to the property" in a contract, without specifics.
8. A neighbor's assurance that the land "has always had water."
9. A conditional right, which is a plan rather than a supply.
10. Historical use — water that was used for fifty years may have been sold last year.

Questions to put to the seller in writing

• Is the water a decreed right, ditch company shares, a well permit, or contract water?
• What is the decree, case number, priority date, decreed amount and decreed use?
• Has any portion been sold, leased, severed or encumbered in the last thirty years — and can you produce the recorded instruments?
• Are ditch company assessments current?
• In how many of the last ten years did this right receive water?
• Is any part of the water subject to a lease that survives closing?

Written answers matter. They convert an assumption into a representation you can rely on.

Then match it to your plans

Write down what you intend to do with the water and check each item against the decreed uses and the well permit. Anything not covered needs a change of water right or a new permit, with cost and years attached C.R.S. § 37-92-103(5). That is the point at which to bring in a water attorney and a consulting engineer — with the WDID, the decree and the permit already in hand, which makes the first hour worth far more.

Buying land with water rights covers the contract terms; the lookup hub covers the other records.