DIYbanter - View Single Post - Sharing well and pump--how much should we charge?

dpb

wrote:
....
I'm surprised the mere idea of well sharing is so foreign to
everyone. It's very common in Wisconsin. It makes a lot of sense.
There are rarely any problems, and I personally have never heard of
any first-hand. Sharing a well causes no problems with deeds,
mortgages, buying, selling, etc. Our deed, and our neighbor's deed,
both have the same language regarding the well and pump, and the deeds
were reviewed by attorneys, title companies, lenders, etc. This is
all legit.

Well, you left out the part of it being included in the deeds,
easements, etc. The discussion was over the case in which, as it
sounded like from the original post, one property owner was supplying
water to an adjacent lacking anything other than a very nebulous verbal
arrangement for power.

My only problem is *HOW* to split the electricity. We both agree that
we'll split it, and our deeds stipulate that we'll split it, but how
do we split it? I'm waiting to hear back from my neighbor to see if
he agrees on a reasonable amount like $15/mo. I have no reason to
believe he'll argue about it. If he does, I'll just have to install a
meter on that circuit, watch it for a few months to come up with an
average, and then charge based on that. If the cost of a meter is
reasonable, I may do that regardless, as I'm a lover of information,
and I'd just like to know how much juice the pump uses.

If the agreement were were complete, it would adjudicate the split as well.

Lacking a formal agreement, estimating is fine if you and the neighbor
are both agreeable. Whether that's equitable depends on relative water
use, though, not simply the power charge. While the incremental
operational cost isn't probably enough to worry about excessively, what
about the distribution of repair costs, etc? Are they to be shared
50:50 or on some estimated basis or what? If one uses far more over
time than the other, is it fair that that user pay less than the
fractional amount of water used?

The point really isn't that you and the current neighbor couldn't work
this all out between the two of you (although I'm curious as another
respondent that if there weren't some friction that you would feel
prompted to post the question to usenet) without anything further, but
the scenario of future neighbors who may not be so easygoing. If
there's a firm legal basis for all the ancillary costs besides simply
the incremental power cost, then there's a basis for settlement that
minimizes potential bickering. Again, the basis for this shouldn't be
to try to favor one party over the other but to make it an equitable
(and well-defined) arrangement.
....
As for the pressure tank... I'm going to have a non-biased third
party plumber look at the installation and make sure it's fare, and
explore the "check valve" to make sure my neighbor doesn't benefit
from it, or, if necessary, figure out what initial costs should be
shared.

As a shared well, what's not "fair" about him gaining some "benefit"
from the pressure tank -- it's part of the system and the _system_ is
shared. One would presume the well feeds the pressure tank and the tank
then feeds both properties.

Again, the agreement should include the system and costs for maintaining
it, not simply the operational costs.

What happens if the well fails and you're out of town for an extended
period? The neighbor have access to everything they need to get the
problem resolved before you return?

So many questions, so few answers...

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