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Water Rights | Real Estate Exam Prep Videos - YouTube
Channel: The Real Estate Classroom
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everyone my name is Paul the Chesky and
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welcome to the real estate classroom
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YouTube channel in today's video we're
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gonna discuss another classification of
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property rights or real property rights
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and that is water rights now in a
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previous video we discussed her Etta
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ments which is another classification of
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real property rights and if you want to
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check out that video before you watch
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this one it's and it may be a good idea
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to do that I'm gonna put a link right up
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here in the upper right hand corner of
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the screen a little I go ahead and click
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on that and watch that before you you
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you watch this one
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alright water rights is a big deal in
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the United States of America as most of
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you probably know already but there are
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three legal doctrines that we need to
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talk about and they are are key terms
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are real estate or key real estate terms
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for this video they are riparian rights
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they are littoral rights and another
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right called the doctrine of prior
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appropriation now most states east of
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the Mississippi River follow the
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riparian rights doctrine and most states
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west of the Mississippi River they
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follow the doctrine of prior
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appropriation and there's some
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substantial differences between them so
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let's talk about riparian rights first
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now a couple of things first of all
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riparian rights deals with a river or
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stream that that the that the property
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is adjacent to who owns the water where
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is the property line those type of
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things and there is a priority system
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over the usage of the water because
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under riparian rights no one owns the
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water itself so let's take a look what
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I'm talking about here so we have a
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river or a stream that's running and we
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have a landowner here that's the
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boundary line and the landowner here
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so under riparian no one owns the water
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all right but everybody has a right to
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use the water they just can't deprive
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people downstream of it and they can't
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they cannot damn it they cannot change
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the trajectory of the water flow so it's
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basically no one owns the water and no
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one can
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toward the water so that means everybody
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has access to it but the boundary line
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the property line is interesting if this
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is a non navigable river or stream and
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what I mean by that commercial commerce
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so for example the Mississippi River the
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Missouri River the Ohio River those are
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exempt from this because they're
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federally owned waterways but let's say
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this is just a stream the the boundary
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line actually runs out to the middle of
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the stream the water flows over it and
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both owners are allowed to to use the
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water so for example this owner could
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jetski here and this owner could jetski
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here and there would be no trespassing
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because they're on the water now if the
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water dried up and the land was exposed
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this owner could not go over here
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because then it would be trespassing
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kind of interesting now here's the other
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thing to remember under riparian as I
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said there is a hierarchy of the usage
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of the water and household usage has
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priority so if there's a city or town
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down here that uses that for drinking
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water and those type of things and this
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water would have private that the town
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the township would have priority over
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the usage of that water should that be
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necessary so that's riparian rights obe
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real quickly under riparian let's say
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this was a federal waterway like the
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Mississippi River and your land was
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adjacent to it then what would happen is
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your property line is either the
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high-water mark or a statutory offset
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many of the rivers have a federal offset
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that it's it's basically 25 or 50 feet
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from the the low water from the
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high-water mark so you probably don't
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need to know that for a test but for
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illustrative purposes I wanted to let
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you know the second one we're going to
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talk about is littoral rights now
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littoral rights is if your property is
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adjacent to a lake or an ocean for
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example emit Lake Michigan or the
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Pacific Ocean then your property line
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ends at the high-water mark at the
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high-water mark that or the high tide
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mark that
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beware it ends and then the last one
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we're going to talk about is the
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doctrine of prior appropriation doctrine
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of prior appropriation simply means the
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first owner to the water has the rights
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to the water they actually own the water
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so let's say we have a couple of
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properties here and we have a lake or
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I'm sorry a stream running through it
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like this all right so we have Rancher
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Tom and Rancher Sally under the doctrine
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of prior appropriation Tom owns the
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water now tom has some privileges with
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that ownership Tom can can deprive Sally
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of the water as long as it's for
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legitimate use so for example he could
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dam or divert the water this way to
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water his cattle he just couldn't do it
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because for whatever reason he hates
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Sally there has to be a legitimate
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reason under the doctrine of prior
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appropriation the other thing that Tom
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cannot do here is he couldn't divert the
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water because let's say Rancher Sam up
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here has a herd of cattle and he's
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having a hard time watering the cattle
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so he enters into an agreement with Tom
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to divert the water to sam's property so
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Sam can water his cattle that also would
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be inappropriate use of the doctrine of
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prior appropriation so just keep that in
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mind it has to be for its person before
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personal use but in our scenario in our
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case Tom does own he does own the rights
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to that water so those are the three
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legal doctrines when it comes to water
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rights so do me a favor if you have any
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questions or you're unclear on something
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please write ask the question or write
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it down in the comment
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action if you've already taken your exam
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and you had a question on anything to do
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with water rights please share that with
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everybody by putting the question that
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you had and the potential answer is down
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in the comment section and lastly if you
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have not taken your real-estate exam yet
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best of luck we'll see you in the next
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video
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