Does this property have a water right?
In California, a well and a water right are separate records. The well log is filed with DWR. The water right is filed with the State Water Board, and it only exists if someone filed it. Many properties have a working well and no right on record.
Enter an address and the report lists every water right on file for the land it sits on: right number, type, status, priority date, flow rate, purpose, and the owner of record. Every right links to the state's own abstract, so you can check each line against the State Water Board yourself.
Water rights report — $49
- Every right on the land description, not a map you have to read.
- Right number and type — statement of claim, ground water certificate, provisional permit, exempt right.
- Status and priority date — seniority is the whole game in a prior-appropriation state.
- Flow rate, volume and purpose of use as filed.
- Owner of record on each right — who actually holds it.
- A link to each right's official the State Water Board abstract, so you can check every line against the state.
- When a right covers a well: the depth, static water level and tested rate filed with it.
Enter the property address right after checkout — report in about ten seconds. Checkout offers the well records as well; both layers together are $69.
Water rights shown are records as filed with Montana DNRC for the legal land description containing this address (roughly 10–40 acres — not a parcel boundary). This is not a determination of ownership, a title search, or a legal opinion.
What the record actually looks like
California registers surface-water rights only — rights to divert from a river, creek, or lake. A private well is not a right of record here, so a home on municipal or well water often shows none, and that is itself the finding: it confirms no surface claim burdens the land. Property near a stream or an irrigation canal is where the rights show up — which ones, whose, and how senior — and that is the thing worth knowing before an offer, not after.
The report is generated the moment you ask for it, read live from the State Water Board, so it is not a stale copy of a state file.
What this does not tell you
- It is not a determination of ownership. A right can be shown as active with a change of ownership still unfiled, so the owner of record can differ from who lives there. Only a title examination settles that.
- It is not a parcel-line answer. the State Water Board records rights against a legal land description, so the rights shown are the rights on that land description — roughly 10 to 40 acres — not on a surveyed lot.
- Water supplied through an organization is recorded to the organization. A city water system, an irrigation district or a water users' association holds the right itself, so a property served that way can show nothing here and still have water.
- It is not legal advice. If a right is the reason you are buying the land, a water-rights attorney or an examination is the next step, and this report is what you hand them.
Well records are the other half
A water right says who may use the water. It does not say what drillers actually hit here — how deep they had to go, where the water sat, what the wells produced. That is the well report, built from the California Department of Water Resources' Well Completion Reports database — the state's official record of water well construction filed by licensed drillers.
You can add it at checkout for $20, or buy it on its own: the California well report — $49. Either product is $49 by itself and $69 with the other attached, whichever you start from.
Common questions
Does a well log mean I have a water right?
No. They are separate records. A well can be drilled, logged and in daily use with no right of record behind it, which is precisely why the two reports answer different questions about the same piece of ground.
Why does the priority date matter so much?
California allocates water by seniority. The priority date is a right's place in line: in a short year the state can call junior rights off a source while senior rights on the same source keep diverting. Two rights on the same creek, one from 1890 and one from 2015, are not comparable things.
Where does the data come from?
the State Water Board's public water rights records — the same records the state publishes an abstract from. Every right in the report links to its own official abstract, so you never have to take our word for a line of it. See our methodology.
What if there is no right on file?
Then the report says exactly that, and explains what it means for the property. No right on record is a finding, not a blank page.