When you are in the rural areas you probably will be working with a small municipal water company, which is nonprofit and mostly managed by volunteers.
They won't have the funds to install the water lines and they will tell you that if you want their water, then install the water lines! And then give them to them! And that you can't receive any part of the tap-on fees from future customers! You have to be careful with the water companies and get everything in writing!! Once I bought a large tract of land which had road frontage on both sides of a county road.
I visited the local water company before I bought the land and showed them on their maps which land I was going to develop and even showed them my aerial photos.
I told them that I was going to develop the east side first and then the west side.
The president of the company, a volunteer, said OK they would provide the water service.
But I didn't get anything in writing.
The development on the east side moved along nicely and I started developing the west side.
When the new buyers on the westside went to get their permits for water service, the company told them that no water service was available! I drove to the office and the same president told me that no water service was available on the west side of the road! He said that the 4" line that was on the east side of the road was large enough to handle the east side development but not the west, and that they did not know that I was going to develop the west side! I went ballistic! But it did no good, as I had nothing in writing.
I had gone to the trouble to visit those people before I bought the land, which is what I should have done, but I didn't get anything in writing, which I should have.
Always get any agreement or understanding in writing! If I had know about this problem earlier, I would have just sold the lots on the west side using wells.
But since I had already made several sales and had told the people that water was available, I had to have a water line installed.
My engineering firm later told me that the water company was responsible for the service and thus the size of the line on the existing public road.
But because I was adding interior roads, even though they were private, I was responsible for the line in the development as well as the one leading to it, if the existing line was less than 6".
So, I had the engineering firm locate an 8" line that the water company had in place about two miles away and design a 6" line to connect to it.
Of course this took time and cost money.
And the water company told me that we would have to install fire hydrants along the way to my project, and those things are about $1,000 each, installed!
They won't have the funds to install the water lines and they will tell you that if you want their water, then install the water lines! And then give them to them! And that you can't receive any part of the tap-on fees from future customers! You have to be careful with the water companies and get everything in writing!! Once I bought a large tract of land which had road frontage on both sides of a county road.
I visited the local water company before I bought the land and showed them on their maps which land I was going to develop and even showed them my aerial photos.
I told them that I was going to develop the east side first and then the west side.
The president of the company, a volunteer, said OK they would provide the water service.
But I didn't get anything in writing.
The development on the east side moved along nicely and I started developing the west side.
When the new buyers on the westside went to get their permits for water service, the company told them that no water service was available! I drove to the office and the same president told me that no water service was available on the west side of the road! He said that the 4" line that was on the east side of the road was large enough to handle the east side development but not the west, and that they did not know that I was going to develop the west side! I went ballistic! But it did no good, as I had nothing in writing.
I had gone to the trouble to visit those people before I bought the land, which is what I should have done, but I didn't get anything in writing, which I should have.
Always get any agreement or understanding in writing! If I had know about this problem earlier, I would have just sold the lots on the west side using wells.
But since I had already made several sales and had told the people that water was available, I had to have a water line installed.
My engineering firm later told me that the water company was responsible for the service and thus the size of the line on the existing public road.
But because I was adding interior roads, even though they were private, I was responsible for the line in the development as well as the one leading to it, if the existing line was less than 6".
So, I had the engineering firm locate an 8" line that the water company had in place about two miles away and design a 6" line to connect to it.
Of course this took time and cost money.
And the water company told me that we would have to install fire hydrants along the way to my project, and those things are about $1,000 each, installed!