The well isn't the water right
The most expensive water misunderstanding in rural Colorado fits in one sentence: “It has a well, so it has water rights.” Usually it has a permit — a conditional permission slip from the state — and the conditions matter enormously when land changes hands.
Exempt wells: permission, not priority
Most rural household wells are exempt wells: permitted outside the priority system, with strict use conditions baked into the permit — typically household-type uses on a limited basis. The permit is real and valuable, but it is not a decreed right with a priority date, and its conditions don’t expand because a new owner has bigger plans. The permit that lawfully waters a house and a garden does not lawfully water a hay field or a second dwelling.
What to check on any well, before closing
- Pull the permit in DWR’s Well Permit Search: number, permitted uses, conditions, and whether the well as built matches the well as permitted.
- Match your plans to the permit’s conditions — not to the water flowing today.
- Change-of-ownership paperwork: Colorado requires a change-of-owner filing with DWR when property with a well transfers — a step our sibling site covers in depth (see WellTestColorado, including testing at the sale itself).
Adjudicated rights: the other animal
Decreed water rights — the kind with priority dates, adjudicated in water court — are what people picture when they say “water rights.” A parcel can hold these too (for irrigation, springs, storage), and they follow the deed-and-decree paper trail, not the well permit. The parcel-check walkthrough covers where each kind of proof lives.
The honest rule of thumb
Read the permit and the decree, not the pump. If your plans for the land lean on water in any way beyond the permit’s plain words, have a water professional read the records before you close — that’s a small consult against a permanent problem, and we can connect you with one who works your basin.