Well licence/registration

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nzfoodie
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Well licence/registration

Postby nzfoodie » Fri Nov 10, 2017 10:06 pm

Hi, we are in the process of purchasing a house in Andalucia. There is a Well on the premises which is connected to the mains but is currently dry and its pump is disconnected. This obviously isn't in use although the owner has said that he has prevously used it to water the garden and top up the pool. There is no record of this well on the Well Registration - is it difficult to get this registered and should we insist that the vendor arrange this prior to contract being signed? His lawyer has replied to our questions by saying that it is in fact a fountain but the building report we had done says it is a well. Fountains spurt water up as far as we know, this is a hole on the ground! BTW house built in 2001.

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Wicksey
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Re: Well licence/registration

Postby Wicksey » Sat Nov 11, 2017 10:02 am

I'm not sure I understand your initial description of it being a "well connected to the mains". Do you mean there is a well and a mains supply of water? If there is a well and it's dry then you'll need to be sure there is another source of water supply to the house. There is such a drought here that if the well has dried up it may not produce water again in the near future.

Gasman
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Re: Well licence/registration

Postby Gasman » Sat Nov 11, 2017 11:04 am

NZ - so the property is connected to the mains?? OK for the house then.
The well, not registered, was used to irrigate the garden and top up the pool - is now dry and the pump disconnected .... problem.
You need to find out if it is dry - therefore redundant until, and it is a big if once a well has run dry, sufficient ground water gets back into the aquifer to allow pumpage again. You need to find out if the pump itself is still function-able or if there is a problem with that.
Putting in a new well is expensive, and there is no guarantee that water would be found elsewhere under your land ... and there are certain restrictions as to where you can put it - and it will have to be approved and registered.
If the house is on mains, you will have metered water and pay for it, so although it is nice to have access to a well, it is not "essential"
A note - I have heard of some areas where once mains water is connected to more rural properties, the use of a well is forbidden - you may need to check if this is the reason that it is no longer in use ....

olive
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Re: Well licence/registration

Postby olive » Sat Nov 11, 2017 11:38 am

Tread carefully.

I concur with Wicksey. If the house is connected to mains water then good. We often suffer cuts to water supplies in rural areas and a well is a useful back up including using for topping up pools and watering gardens. You could achieve the same by installing a small tank to cover outages and have bottled water on hand for drinking. There is no guarantee that the well will ever provide water again. I presume it is a bore hole with a lining of some sort down which a submersible pump is dropped along with cable and pipe and a maintenance rope? Some neighbours had theirs redrilled to try and improve water delivery but it wasn't a success. One other neighbour had a dry well come back into production following the tremendous rainfall back in 2012.

A few years back we had a well drilled and it is completely legal and registered with Hidrografia. Some info on that here. http://andalucia.com/forums/viewtopic.p ... ed#p269863 ( If you look in the quick links tabtop left there is a search facility which might throw up more info).

I presume Well Registration is a file held by Hidrografia ? Never heard of it. One good thing is the house was built in 2001 and there should be a good paper trail. No chance of the owner saying it was drilled/dug 100 years ago. I would say that it would be far easier for the owner to get it registered and pay the fees than you doing so later. With my devils advocate hat on , I would also say that you are unlikely to be found out as they just do not have the manpower to investigate such matters. I have just come back from visiting the drilling of yet another commercial olive irrigation well in our locality. Again no permissions bothered with as it is going to be connected to a solar panel tucked away in the trees.

jhonie99
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Re: Well licence/registration

Postby jhonie99 » Sat Nov 11, 2017 11:49 am

I think their might be confusion. The first thing I thought of was "fountain". Are you sure? Most likely meant "Fuente" is Spanish which is a natural water source out of the ground, which then fills a man made "well" to be used as you wish. No registrations required. Fuente also translates as fountain.

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Wicksey
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Re: Well licence/registration

Postby Wicksey » Sat Nov 11, 2017 11:53 am

Presuming your house is in the campo (as it has a well) I would check the water supply very carefully. We once lived for 8 years without any water and relied on rain collection which you can't do at the moment as we aren't getting much. We were promised a mains water supply for years but it was slow going and from what I understand the system installed there can be hit and miss at times.

We are now on agricultural water, but even then it is only via a neighbour so still not ideal (and the agricultural supply is only on certain times of the week and it's not for drinking). You really need a deposito, as Olive suggests, a holding tank for if/when there is a cut in supply. I have lived in rural areas in the UK and France and always had a proper mains drinking water supply, but I have found campo living in Spain to be completely different and it's something you need to check carefully before buying.

Floriana
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Re: Well licence/registration

Postby Floriana » Sun Nov 12, 2017 5:14 pm

Olive, who is Hidrografia? I've Googled different spellings but can't find any authority with this name....

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Enrique
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Re: Well licence/registration

Postby Enrique » Sun Nov 12, 2017 5:26 pm

Hi Floriana,

My Google throws up........................some light reading.

http://www.ideandalucia.es/portal/web/p ... idrografia
All my best learning experiences start with a problem I need to solve.

nzfoodie
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Re: Well licence/registration

Postby nzfoodie » Mon Nov 13, 2017 4:57 am

Thanks for all your replies. The house had mains connection, the owner has referred to it as a "water deposit which is connected to the mains" used to store water for watering the garden and topping up the pool. The building report we have had done by Survey Spain refers to it as a Well and has suggested that we check out possible shared use and licences. When our lawyer approached the sellers lawyer with our questions they were told that it is a fountain. Which according to your posts doesnt have to be registered which would be good. We're still none the wiser as to what it officially is. Any further comments?


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