Before I understood water law, I assumed buying land with irrigation history meant water access came with it. That assumption is wrong and expensive. Membership in a mutual ditch company is separate from land ownership. Shares can be sold off independently, and plenty of sellers have done exactly that before listing a parcel. I've watched buyers close on ground that had irrigation infrastructure everywhere — headgates, laterals, concrete boxes — and zero active ditch shares attached to the deed. The infrastructure is basically yard art at that point.
Request the ditch company's shareholder registry and confirm share certificates are still tied to the parcel before you get deep into due diligence. Call the ditch superintendent directly. Title companies routinely miss this because shares are personal property in Colorado, not real property, and they don't always appear in a standard title search.
I'd rather someone argue that their state handles this differently than watch another buyer get burned assuming the hardware tells the whole story. How does your state or region treat ditch share transfers at closing?