BEFORE YOU SELL YOUR WATER SHARES!

WATER! Do you want to gain or lose when you sell your Water Shares? 

Before you sell your Water Shares, here’s what you need to do!

1) Secure copies of your original yearly quantity (*Allotment Quantity) *Water, and original date of *Adjudication.

2) Determine which you want to sell: Allotment Quantity or *Consumptive Use.

3) *If you sell your Consumptive Use, you retain the right to use the margin between your Consumptive Use and Allotment Quantity.

4) In drought, change of crop etc., Owner has the right to use up to (*Supplement), not exceed, their Allotment Quantity.

5) If you sell your Consumptive Use, make sure buyer does not include verbiage such as; Dry-Up Covenant. Instead, include verbiage such as; I retain the right to use _ _ _ acre feet.

6) Should you sell your Allotment Quantity, buyer may include verbiage such as Dry-Up Covenant; you lose rights to use that Water – unless you agree to an annual lease back.

7) Should you sell your Allotment Quantity and agree to a lease back, make certain buyer assumes responsibility for ALL Ditch Company assessments thereon.

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Owners of Original Water Shares are likely taking significant losses when they sell their shares!

Why? They don’t know their rights. They generally sell their Consumptive Use amount, which is evaluated by the buyer.

Selling the CU amount is OK, if seller retains their right to use the margin.

The margin between AQ and CU can be as much as 50% more than the CU.

Or, in dollars let’s say your CU might be worth $120,000 per share and your AQ $240.000 per share. Do you want to gain - or lose - if you sell your water?  

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· Water: Our forefathers put "Water" (ground and surface because they’re connected) to beneficial use.

· Allotment Quantity (AQ). Water was recorded as an Allotment Quantity. They could not predict Consumptive Use.

· Consumptive Use (CU): Amount you use on certain crop. There’s no such thing as “historic” Consumptive Use, for many reasons including crop rotations.

· Adjudication: When our forefathers put "Water" to beneficial use, they were given a "Date of Adjudication." That "original date of adjudication" stays; regardless a later well date.

· Supplement: Upon selling a Water Share, owner may sell their AQ or CU. If owner sells their CU, they have the right to use the margin between. Owner may supplement that demand with well (or other) water. (c) The use of groundwater may be considered as an alternate or *supplemental source of supply for surface decrees entered prior to June 7, 1969, taking into consideration both previous usage and the necessity to protect the vested rights of others. C.R.S. 37-92-102 Legislative declaration basic tenets of Colorado Water Law.