If you are listing a property for sale in CA and the seller wants to reserve the oil, gas, mineral, and water rights, what do you tell them?

Good questions - are there a lot of oil, minerals and gas in Apple Valley?

I thought, if I remember my RE test questions correctly, that water-rights were considered real property and they cannot be separated from the land.

In Colorado the water rights while being real property do not come with the land. They are generally sold as shares of a water company. In Colorado mineral rights can be severed from the land and it makes great sense for sellers to do just that.

I will say Herby D. If you are planning to list a property with water rights you should probably refer it out to someone that knows what they are doing to value them properly. Don't just jump in and learn on the fly. Your seller should know what kind of water rights they have. Just ask them.

For example my property I own has water rights. The water rights are worth $400,000. The 80 acres and house are worth about $400,000. One can sell the water rights seperately, but then you possibly could run into other issues if you didn't have a place to use that water.

Water rights are very complicated in Colorado and I would think in California especially depending where you are they could be even more complicated.

Gotta admit I haven't yet had to deal with that situation either. My understanding is that in California, water rights can be sold separately from the land itself even though they are considered real property and would normally be appurtenant to the physical property.

What I would tell the seller is that we need to get together with a real estate attorney. You'll need to be sure it's clear 1) what specific rights the owner currently has and 2) what specific rights are being withheld from the transfer (are we talking about ground water rights, surface water rights, mutual stock water company rights, riparian rights, etc.?). The most important part, of course, is getting rock-solid language in the contract, and if this is new territory for you then you *definitely* want someone with experience to write that for you.

I have been practicing real estate in CA for over 40 years and have always understood and recognized the correlative rights doctrine ( water belongs to the people and can not be separated from the land)as practiced in CA law. I've always been aware of the, legal, reservation of MOG rights, but have never known of someone reserving water rights when selling property, because they can't reserve something they don't own. (since it belongs to the 'people') I know that "adjudicated" rights can be sold separately, but that is for excess water.

A property owner here in Apple Valley recently had to defend their rights to pump water on their property because an heir found an old deed dated back in 1948 reserving the "water rights" when the property was transfered back in 1948. The case was settled, out of court, last week, for 1.07 million dollars. I have researched records and found that there was no adjudication back in 1948....I am astounded that anyone would not have considered the deed invalid...I am just curious if anyone on this forum has ever heard of water rights in CA being reserved by deed before...Is this something a CA broker now needs to be concerned about? I am aware of the changes in water rights in different states, but I always thought the correlative rights doctrine was a sacred issue in CA...Thanks for your input..I have enjoyed researching this forum...