Riparian rights are property rights.
Riparian rights are inherent in a riparian parcel of land.
A parcel of land must border a natural body of water to be identified as riparian.
If you own a riparian parcel of land you own:
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The upland.
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Your building and dock.
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The bottomland offshore from your lot.
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The aquatic vegetation growing on your bottomland.
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The ice above your bottomland.
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The right to fish, hunt, swim and boat on the entire lake surface in common with all other riparian property owners.
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You have exclusive rights to use:
- Your upland
- Your beach
- Your bottomland to anchor offshore docks, rafts, etc.
Riparian Rights In Michigan Inland Lakes & Streams
By Donald Winne
Riparian rights are enjoyed only on land which abuts a natural water course. Those rights are of two kinds, natural and correlative. Natural rights include those uses "necessary for the existence of the riparian proprietor and his family, such as to quench thirst and for household uses".
Correlative rights "are those which merely increase one's comfort and prosperity and do not rank as essential to his existence, such as commercial profit and recreation".* Correlative rights must be reasonable at all times and cannot encroach or infringe unreasonably upon the use of the surface of the lake or stream by other riparians and members of the public.
A person who owns land abutting an inland lake or stream in Michigan may:
- Install a pier anchored to his bottomland.
- Moor a boat anchored to his bottomland.
- Harvest ice from above his bottomland.
- “Controls any temporarily or periodically exposed bottomland to the water's edge, wherever it may be at the time and holds the lands secure against trespass in the same manner as his upland subject to the public trust to the ordinary high-water mark.”
(Act 346, P.A. (OF 1972, Section 12.)
A person who owns land abutting an inland lake or stream in Michigan may NOT:
- Permanently anchor a raft or moor a boat on the bottomland that belongs to another riparian property owner.
- Install a pier an unreasonable length out into a lake or stream.
- Dedicate the surface or any portion thereof of a lake or stream without a permit from the Department of Natural Resources.
- Cannot transfer his riparian rights to another person.
- Cannot unreasonably restrict the use of the surface of a lake or stream by members of the public.
- Cannot build a seawall or jetty closer to the water's edge than at the high-water mark.
- May not dredge or place fill in a like or stream without a permit from the Department Natural Resources.
* Quotes are from Thompson vs. Enz, 379 Mich 667, after remand 385 Mich. 103 (1971).