Rural land surveyors are among the unsung heroes of Ohio’s real property system. They spend long hours navigating the fields, woods, and other remote areas of Ohio, carrying GPS equipment and precision tools used to measure property boundaries and acreage. They document the condition and location of surveying pins, which can be disturbed over time by wildlife, weather, or human activity. When a land transaction depends on knowing exactly how much property is being bought or sold, the work of a rural land surveyor is often crucial to a successful transaction.
When a River Becomes the Property Line
Some rural parcels defy exact measurement by even the most experienced and diligent surveyors, because they use rivers or streams as their boundaries. Those rivers and streams are in constant motion; every rainstorm and ice melt affects their speed and depth, and they routinely shift the sand and soil around them. Nonetheless, river boundaries were commonly used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and Ohio itself has used a river as its southern boundary since 1792, before its statehood.
Even after the advent of modern surveying equipment, river boundaries remain common in rural Ohio; they are especially prevalent in describing agricultural land, where plainly stated water rights can be critical to market value, irrigation potential, and crop selection. Thankfully, Ohio’s legal rules governing water boundaries have remained stable despite the threat of technological ‘disruption’ from satellite imagery, drone photography, or GPS measurement. In the words of the Ohio Supreme Court, “natural and permanent monuments are the most satisfactory evidence” among all methods of describing real property, because “monuments are considered more reliable evidence than courses and distances.”
How Ohio Law Treats Changing Waterway Boundaries
Although natural monuments such as rivers and streams are extremely reliable indicators of location and are less vulnerable to tampering and concealment than many man-made indicators, they can move over time. Under most circumstances, this movement has little legal significance, as Ohio law is clear that “where the bank of the stream is called for and the bank is added to by slow and gradual accretion, the boundary is the new bank….” However, sudden and drastic changes in the course of a waterway are treated differently under Ohio law: in contrast to “the usual and ordinary case of the shifting of earth by the action of the waters,” rapid earth movement “of a somewhat extraordinary nature” that involves “the transfer of a considerable quantity of earth beyond or over the channel of the stream” does not change the property boundary. In fact, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed this common law as recently as 1998, stating that “We have long recognized that a sudden shoreline change known as avulsion (as distinct from accretion, or gradual change in configuration) has no effect on boundary.” Thus, a waterway that moves gradually could add acres of land to one side of its course over time, and Ohio’s legal system would acknowledge that, but a waterway that moves suddenly or extraordinarily does not change the property boundary at all.
We use rural surveyors, once again, to measure and track the changes in a waterway’s course, and the speed of such changes. Surveyors use “meander lines” to describe the exact location of a waterway at a specific moment in time; these lines can then be compared across years and decades to measure the average pace of accretion at any particular point or stretch of the waterway. In addition to their historical value, meander lines also allow a surveyor to calculate the exact acreage of a parcel bounded by a waterway, data which is often critical to a sale of land, while acknowledging that the boundary of the parcel changes over time.
Climate Change & Evolving Waterway Boundaries
As climate change continues to impact Ohio and severe weather events become more frequent, determining whether a change in the course of a waterway was “routine” or “extraordinary” may be increasingly difficult. Flooding, tornadoes, and other significant events can alter waterways in ways that complicate efforts to establish their historical patterns of movement. As a result, determining a waterway’s typical rate of accretion and persuading a court or jury that a particular change was ordinary or extraordinary may require careful analysis of historical records, survey data, and other evidence. These disputes often benefit from collaboration among legal counsel, land surveyors, and other professionals with knowledge of the property and the waterway’s history.
Protecting Waterfront Property Value
If your property is bounded by water, its marketability and value may depend heavily on documenting the shifts and changes in the waterway’s location over time. Retaining legal counsel experienced in real property and boundary matters can help you evaluate that history, protect your property interests, maximize sale value, and avoid boundary disputes.
For more information, or to seek counsel from our Real Estate & Construction practice group, please reach out to request a consultation or call us at 216-696-1422.
_____
The information contained in this blog post is provided for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. Readers should consult with qualified legal counsel regarding their specific circumstances before taking any action based on the information presented.
