Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
My husband and I are considering buying a home in Kern County, CA. The property uses a shared well. The last test conducted (in 2011) indicated the well runs 5.5 gal/min. If I'm correct, I think each property is supposed to have at least 3 gal/min. So the well should be operating at 6 gal/min. minimum. No one can find the owner of the adjoining property and there is currently no home built on the adjoining lot. Our concern is if the owner of the other property shows up one day and wants to build on the land. Would my husband and I legally need to pay for any upgrades necessary to bring the well up to specs? To ensure it would allow both properties to run on at least 3 gal/min (6 gal/min total). Our concern is that because it's a shared well, we would need to pay for some of it.
1 Answer from Attorneys
I used to have a nearly identical situation: a shared well that was capable of about 5 gpm, and a vacant property that was later built upon as the sharing neighbor. The well was physically on the neighbor's property and we had an easement agreement. The easement agreement spelled out how the water was prioritized and shared. Is there a recorded agreement covering this well? Here are some technical thoughts: (1) Some counties have minimum flow requirements for residential wells--in my (former) county, you needed 1.0 gpm in order to get a building permit, as I recall. (2) Well tests not only determine peak flow, they also (usually) will report for how long the peak flow can be maintained. There's a huge difference between 6 gpm for 15 minutes and 6 gpm for 12 hours! (3) Is the water-production capability related to the well itself, or to the pump? (Many well tests use the tester's portable pump, which may be more or possibly less productive than the well itself or the well's own pump). (4) Remember that well water often, perhaps generally, is stored and re-delivered to the home by a domestic pump, not the well pump, so storage capacity buffers well-delivery capacity, and there are 1,440 minutes in a day, suggesting that a storage tank holding several thousand gallons might need to be part of your system. (5), are you planning on doing agriculture, or will the water be used only for household purposes? That may be decisive in whether the water supply is adequate as a practical matter. Finally (6), what is the outlook for getting additional water from a new well on the property that isn't shared? Ask a local driller for a guesstimate of cost and likely production.