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Post by Sasquatch on Jan 21, 2020 10:52:09 GMT -5
The way I read it, this law would privatize beaches. So theoretically, if a property owner owned a half mile of property in front of the beach they could then fence off that beach as their deeds would now extend to the water. Thoughts? Lake Michigan law |
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Post by 36fan on Jan 21, 2020 12:45:38 GMT -5
Makes me think the steel mills and other large industry in the Region got a Representative in their pocket.
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Post by Russ Koon on Jan 21, 2020 12:50:34 GMT -5
It's been a matter of some dispute in many cases over the time since we first landed on the shores and began divvying up the land into parcels that we "owned".
The prevailing principle that was adopted into law by individual states and the nation was the one that was part of old English common law since the Magna Carta. That documented that the shores of the country and the riversides of any flowing streams and rivers that were "navigable" were no longer the King's to use at his discretion only, but there for the use of the public for fishing, boating, and recreational use.
The most often ignored or disputed area is the "normal high water line" definition of the boundary between private and public control. Some have defined those words to mean the point at which the river bank or shoreside cliffs drop down to the level that is often washed buy waves or moderately high waters that are not extreme floods.
The use of the waters for fishing is another matter that usually involves the same interpretations of official ownership or usage of the waters when the shoreline is owned by multiple owners, especially when the state is one of those owners. A number of court cases have been "settled" at the first level in judgments that were later overturned on appeal. It seems to still be a matter of some dispute that is likely to be decided on the merits of the case before the court at that time, with little intent to follow or set precedent from past or future cases.
It's been a pet peeve/interest of mine for a long time since I found a secluded lake where the state owned one small corner and had stocked the lake, but all the reachable access points that could be reached by a vehicle towing or car-topping a boat were on private ground. I found a route to that one state-owned corner that was accessible by foot, but carrying my canoe that far would have been a feat bordering on the impossible.
One of the more recent questions on the matter came up while I was researching the possibilities of hunting the immediate riversides of White River. That "normal high water line has lately been interpreted as meaning the waterline at average normal level in the state's literature advising the public on the use. Pretty sure the Magna Carta hasn't changed, but apparently the interpretation has.
It would appear that in this area, as in so many others, our rights must be constantly watched over and safeguarded.
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Post by 36fan on Jan 21, 2020 21:54:16 GMT -5
The problem is rivers and lakes aren't static. The banks are constantly moving. Property lines do not move. The old metes and bounds survey system (the corner starting at the big oak tree at continuing 300 feet east until it intersects Bob's Creek) does not work well when things move. The Indiana Kentucky line is the banks of the Ohio River when Kentucky became a state. Now there are pieces of land that belong to Kentucky on the north side of the river.
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Post by freedomhunter on Jan 21, 2020 21:58:24 GMT -5
The problem is rivers and lakes aren't static. The banks are constantly moving. Property lines do not move. The old metes and bounds survey system (the corner starting at the big oak tree at continuing 300 feet east until it intersects Bob's Creek) does not work well when things move. The Indiana Kentucky line is the banks of the Ohio River when Kentucky became a state. Now there are pieces of land that belong to Kentucky on the north side of the river. Might want to research riparian law a little better.. if the bound is called out to the thread of a stream and the course changes, the line moves and you can gain or lose ground |
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Post by chewbacca on Jan 22, 2020 8:15:38 GMT -5
I need more information before I can form a thought on this. I would like to see the various reasons why this would or wouldn't be a good thing. I just don't know enough about it. All I know is the past couple of years that shoreline hasn't gotten hammered and is eroding away at a very rapid pace. Many people have lost their homes from this.
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Post by 36fan on Jan 22, 2020 10:15:34 GMT -5
The problem is rivers and lakes aren't static. The banks are constantly moving. Property lines do not move. The old metes and bounds survey system (the corner starting at the big oak tree at continuing 300 feet east until it intersects Bob's Creek) does not work well when things move. The Indiana Kentucky line is the banks of the Ohio River when Kentucky became a state. Now there are pieces of land that belong to Kentucky on the north side of the river. Might want to research riparian law a little better.. if the bound is called out to the thread of a stream and the course changes, the line moves and you can gain or lose ground If it were only that simple. |
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Post by Russ Koon on Jan 22, 2020 15:55:39 GMT -5
Yes, there are many complications in that area.
Even on solid ground with no moving water, we sometimes find ourselves in some sort of limbo regarding our exact boundaries.
The lake community where we've lived for the last 42 ears was apparently never really surveyed properly when it was plotted originally. My abstract, which I insisted on viewing before closing the deal, revealed a strip of land eight feet wide which was "excepted" from the purchase, but was represented to me as having been included. The realtor wasn't very happy when I said the deal was off unless it was included, officially, in the property being purchased. Neither was the seller, who was packed up and ready to move to CA at closing! But the "exception" had been known to both those parties all along, and I had no sympathy for the people trying to slip one over on us, and held firm despite their assurances that it was of no real importance. They somehow managed to contact the previous owner who had kept that eight foot strip to continue his access to the lake with his fishing boat, even though the transfer of partial lots was explicitly forbidden in the association's by-laws, and obtained title to the strip and got it officially added back to the property in two days!
Now, in recent years the neighbor on south has decided that his property actually includes a sliver of mine. He bought his place long ago also, just a year or so after I bought mine, and both of have abstracts that were done by the same title company, now long since gone. Neither abstract gives a definite angle from the base angle of the abstract to that common boundary, though. So I began researching to try to find where exactly it was by some legal description. I'd read many legal notices over the years in the papers that included legal descriptions of properties in minute details with every boundary described by the degrees and minutes and feet in every tiny wiggle surveyed. Usually they ended up also being described as "otherwise known as" such and such address, or as Lot #such and such in Whatever Acres subdivision.
Searches at the county governmental levels got me little else, except their providing me with some GIS shots that they said was their best idea of the lots' locations. Those aerial shots showed "property lines" running pretty much through the centers of the the first three lots of our subdivision, indicating that I own half that neighboring house to the north, and my neighbor to the south likewise owns half my house, etc.
Good info, like good help, can be hard to find.
I finally got a copy of a much more recent survey of our area done by the most prominent local surveyor about seven years ago for another property transaction several doors south of me, but where he went back to the original starting point for the subdivision and plotted his way lot by lot to the one being transferred at the time, in order to get a reliable and exact definition of that lot.
And, in the pursuit of the truth, I was informed by people at a couple of title search services that our abstracts are now obsolete and "not used anymore" and that new survey would be needed to legally define the property we've lived on and paid taxes on for 42 years!
The saga continues...
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Post by 36fan on Jan 22, 2020 22:21:21 GMT -5
^
^
^
And that is with the much more reliable Township and Range survey method!
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Post by Russ Koon on Jan 24, 2020 23:43:33 GMT -5
The was an article in today's paper ( our paper is the Martinsville Reporter-Times but the article was originally in the South Bend Tribune) on the bills in the legislature on the issue in Lake Michigan.
Seemed to be a decent piece covering differing views and explaining some of the history and issues.
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