I used to think water rights were the whole story when buying irrigated ground. I was wrong. Ditch company shares are a separate beast entirely, and I learned that the hard way watching a buyer two miles from me close on a beautiful 320-acre parcel only to discover the shares had been quietly sold off by the estate years before. The water right was still adjudicated to the land. The delivery mechanism was gone.
On the high plains, ditch company shares control your physical access to the water your right entitles you to. Without shares, you have a legal right you cannot exercise. The ditch company's bylaws, financial condition, and infrastructure maintenance history matter just as much as the priority date. Some of these companies are one bad assessment year away from collapse.
Before any offer, I now demand the ditch company's financials, meeting minutes from the last three years, and written confirmation that shares are intact and transferable.
Anyone else buying irrigated ground in a ditch-dependent system who skipped this step and got burned — or am I overstating the risk for regions where delivery infrastructure is more stable?