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Water Rights Resources

Water law is complex, nuanced, and can be difficult to understand. We delve into common water law concepts and provide tutorials that describe how it use publicly available tools to learn more about water rights. To this end, below are a series of articles that are designed to help parties develop a general understanding of some of the basic principles of water law. The information provided below is for educational purposes only and if you have specific questions about your water rights, please contact the attorneys at Nazarenus Stack & Wombacher for legal advice. Use of this information is explicitly subject the website disclaimer available at this link https://www.nswlaw.com/disclaimer

Do I have water rights on my property?

Identifying and assessing the water rights on your property can be challenging, but there are tools available to help. The first step in assessing whether or not you own a water right is to review the deed for your property and see if it describes any water rights. Typically, water rights are conveyed by name or by reference to a Water Court case number in a deed that is recorded with the county clerk and recorder’s office. However, water rights can, in some instances, also transfer through the appurtenance clauses in a deed that conveys land – even if the water right is not specifically identified in the deed itself. Title research may be necessary to determine the owner of a particular water right.

If it is unclear from a deed whether your property includes water rights, there are a number of tools available from the Colorado Division of Water Resources to help property owners research their water rights and those of others in their area. The NSW website includes a series of tutorials to assist in performing this research. For example, the Map Viewer tool allows you to see a visual representation of the water rights on or in the vicinity of a property. If you know the name of the water right you are researching or have a Water Court case number, you can use this information to find a Water Court decree, diversion records, and other publicly available information. Here is a link to a tutorial to search by water right name or Water Court case number.

The Colorado Division of Water Resources also has a tool for looking up well permits if you know your well permit number. If you don’t know your well permit number, you can find it by using the Map Viewer tool described above and turning on the well permit layer. Be aware that even a long-time water supply for a property may have title, legal, and technical issues that surface only after research. These issues typically arise during a real estate transaction or as a result of a Water Court application or well permit application. See our website for more information on common title issues and pond issues.

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