Trespass via Riverbeds?
- Thread starter TeeDee
- Start date
Which in terms of definition means what? water born craft? But what constitutes that?
Ah, the ongoing dispute of riparian rights!
In general, a landowner owns the river bed (actually water course bed) to the centre of the river and, by definition therefor, owns the whole river bed if he has land both sides. You are committing trespass if you walk the river bed.
However, who has rights of navigation is a whole different matter and is in dispute. In Britain there has been practice to use rivers to transport people and goods without hindrance though, in some cases, by toll. Now, the owners of riparian rights on many rivers want to stop that and prevent the use by boats so they can make money from the fishing. Neither side wants to take it to court because neither is 100% sure of their position
In general, a landowner owns the river bed (actually water course bed) to the centre of the river and, by definition therefor, owns the whole river bed if he has land both sides. You are committing trespass if you walk the river bed.
However, who has rights of navigation is a whole different matter and is in dispute. In Britain there has been practice to use rivers to transport people and goods without hindrance though, in some cases, by toll. Now, the owners of riparian rights on many rivers want to stop that and prevent the use by boats so they can make money from the fishing. Neither side wants to take it to court because neither is 100% sure of their position
Ah, the ongoing dispute of riparian rights!
In general, a landowner owns the river bed (actually water course bed) to the centre of the river and, by definition therefor, owns the whole river bed if he has land both sides. You are committing trespass if you walk the river bed.
However, who has rights of navigation is a whole different matter and is in dispute. In Britain there has been practice to use rivers to transport people and goods without hindrance though, in some cases, by toll. Now, the owners of riparian rights on many rivers want to stop that and prevent the use by boats so they can make money from the fishing. Neither side wants to take it to court because neither is 100% sure of their position
I recently learned that they might not even own the rights to fishing either. On canals the fishing rights belong to the CRT exclusively, which makes it even more complicated.
Whoever owns the water, you may have to trespass to get to it!
It gets complicated where a river is the boundary between two properties and passes under a roadway owned by the local council or the highways authority. This is the case in my village. It used to be even more tangled because what people thought was a public footpath was an “agreed easement” (temporary but maybe long term) and a canal crossed over the river by an aqueduct so presumably Canal and River Trust had rights of access for maintenance and authority to impose regulations. It’s now owned by the local authority museums trust and there is public access via an easement. The river drains the flat land around it and someone (probably the Canal and River Trust), rocks up with an excavator and rips up the bed every few years. My house has been separate from the land behind it as long as I’ve owned it but according to the deeds the owner of my house used to have the right to extract water from and to release water into the river. That right didn’t automatically come with ownership of the adjacent land. It was granted by the water authority.
However despite multiple authorities and ownerships none of those are mine. I’d be trespassing if I waded along it.
It gets complicated where a river is the boundary between two properties and passes under a roadway owned by the local council or the highways authority. This is the case in my village. It used to be even more tangled because what people thought was a public footpath was an “agreed easement” (temporary but maybe long term) and a canal crossed over the river by an aqueduct so presumably Canal and River Trust had rights of access for maintenance and authority to impose regulations. It’s now owned by the local authority museums trust and there is public access via an easement. The river drains the flat land around it and someone (probably the Canal and River Trust), rocks up with an excavator and rips up the bed every few years. My house has been separate from the land behind it as long as I’ve owned it but according to the deeds the owner of my house used to have the right to extract water from and to release water into the river. That right didn’t automatically come with ownership of the adjacent land. It was granted by the water authority.
However despite multiple authorities and ownerships none of those are mine. I’d be trespassing if I waded along it.
Similar threads
