Brian Carter successfully concluded a representation of a client whose rural property relies and benefits substantially from a water pipeline that originates at a spring on the uphill neighbor’s property, and has so benefited for decades. The right to take water from the spring was never reduced to a writing, and recently someone destroyed the water pipeline.
Mr. Carter worked with the client and the neighbors to create and execute a water pipeline and easement agreement, which resulted in the execution and recordation of a water pipeline easement grant deed, which will memorialize and protect the client’s right to continue to receive water from the spring as it historically has.
The matter highlights the vulnerabilities of rural clients whose right to receive water from a spring may have matured into a prescriptive easement but are not on the public record. Such entitlements to receive water and carry it through a pipeline can add a substantial amount of value to a rural property, and warrant the time and expense required to reduce them to writing and record them, preferably in the form of an easement deed. The water rights themselves may not be perfected without a license from the state, but an easement to maintain the pipeline goes a long way to avoid future disputes regarding maintenance and use of the pipeline.