Everyone told me to secure the water rights before closing. Good advice — but incomplete. What nobody mentioned was that a valid decree is only as useful as the physical infrastructure connecting you to the source. I bought a place with solid senior rights on a local ditch system, only to discover that the lateral serving my headgate hadn't been maintained in fifteen years. The ditch company's responsibility ended at the main canal. Everything from there to my fields was on me — rotten headgate, collapsed sections, a silted-up lateral the length of a county road.
Rehabilitation ran well into five figures before I moved a single acre-foot. The water right itself was real and enforceable. The delivery system was a wreck. These are two completely separate due-diligence questions, and most buyers conflate them.
Before you close on any irrigated ground, get eyes on every inch of lateral that serves your headgate. Talk directly to the ditch rider, not just the ditch company board.
Anyone else find that the lateral condition told a completely different story than the adjudication paperwork?