Water entitlements (as security)

BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED 2026-11-06

// THE SHORT ANSWER

In much of Australia, water entitlements are property separate from land: a farmer can hold, trade and mortgage a share of a water resource apart from the land. Lenders record their security on the state register, such as the Water Access Licence Register in New South Wales or the Victorian Water Register, and value the water separately, because it can be a large part of an irrigated farm's worth and its price moves with allocations and drought. In New Zealand, water is taken under permits from regional councils that are usually tied to a site, and England and Wales use abstraction licences.

BASIS  Practitioner judgment from sixteen years in commercial banking, set out in How Bankers Think (Highbank Press, 2026). Every borrower on this site is a composite constructed for teaching, not a client. The market is mid-market commercial lending as practised in New Zealand and Australia; where a convention differs elsewhere, the page says so.