The easiest way for parties to explain their purpose for the well is to explicitly limit the well to domestic use. Idaho exempts domestic groundwater uses from most permit and royalty requirements. [7] Idaho defines domestic uses as ”water for homes, organizing camps, public campsites, livestock and other purposes, including irrigation of half a hectare (1/2) of hectares if the total use does not exceed thirteen thousand (13,000) gallons per day.” [8] However, if the owner uses water for several property areas, trailer parks, commercial or commercial buildings, it is limited to 2500 gallons per day. [9] For many landowners, limiting their agreement to national uses will cover their water needs. If the use of the parties exceeds the legal definition of domestic use, they must acquire a new right to water. After the agreement has identified the parties, properties and purpose of the agreement, it must indicate who is responsible for the costs of installing, operating and maintaining the well. Water users should be jointly responsible for the authorized use and maintenance of wells. Taking the time to specify how the parties will allocate the costs of maintaining, repairing, upgrading and replacing well equipment, including the date of payment of these costs, can help avoid disputes between the parties and subsequent owners. For more information or questions about well contracts or any special situation, please contact one of our lawyers. What are the risks if you don`t have a registered agreement for a common well? The importance of a well agreement is above all to guarantee a right of access to neighbouring land that does not have the well on their land. In the absence of a registered agreement, the contract would likely be between the original owners. How can neighbouring landowners or future landowners prove legal access to the well on someone else`s land? Another example could be a neighbour who uses a lot of water for watering lawns, filling pools, flooding backyards or filling tanks to bring them to the cottage. Can a neighbor sell his water? If the operating costs of the pump are shared by many neighbours and a neighbour`s water consumption is exceptionally high, is this permissible and should all of them bear the same costs? (As a general rule, costs are equally distributed.) In the absence of an agreement, who decides what repairs are needed and who will be hired for repairs? When a pump breaks down, sometimes decisions have to be made quickly and with confidence and dealers want payment.
A common well is a well that supplies water to more than one property, generally, so installation and maintenance costs can be shared. We are told that some people feel that a steady flow of water resulting from the use of more than one property (up to a point where too much water is emptied) can improve the quality of the water to be drawn. Remember, once the sales contract (the offer to buy) is concluded, it`s probably too late to deal with this problem properly! To take an example that we see too often in our office, a buyer may discover that a property through a common well accesses the water, but excited by the new purchase and has focused on the more interesting features of the home, eager to buy and not want to add conditions, the buyer simply makes sure that the offer to purchase contains a term that says something like ”seller to provide a good deal before possession”.
