Coastal Access Toolkit
For information about drawing up contracts, transferring access, and More...
Common Law & Statutes
For information about land ownership and More...
- • FAQs
- • Resources
- • Glossary A-H
- • Glossary I-P
- • Glossary Q-Z
Private Waterfront Landowner
Overview
-
Managing Access
Benefits and Risks of Providing Access
- What are the benefits of allowing access to my waterfront land?
- What if someone gets injured while using my land, can I be held liable?
- You have the right to determine who can access your waterfront land:
- When you choose to voluntarily allow public access to your waterfront, be informed about liability issues and Maine's Landowner Liability Law.
- You have the right to exclude access to your waterfront land (to mean low tide).
- If you allow access to any type of user (public or a defined group), you have the right to prescribe the kinds of activities and behavior that are acceptable on your property. To clarify this, you can draft a Contract for Access with the prospective users or arrange with the prospective users to buy certain interests in the property.
- Limitations to your rights have to do with Fishing, Fowling and Navigation a colonial ordinance that to this day allows people in Maine to use private intertidal areas for one of these three purposes.
- Other limitations imposed by doctrine include the potential for eminent domain, takings and prescriptive easements.
- Tax benefits and affordability.
- Income potential when land trusts or public entities purchase easements
- If you allow access to any type of user (public or a defined group), you have the right to prescribe the kinds of activities and behavior that are acceptable on your property. To clarify this, you can draft a Contract for Access with the prospective users or arrange with the prospective users to buy certain interests in the property.
How do I control public access?
As a waterfront landowner, what are my legal rights and responsibilities to control public use of my property? What is the scope of my ownership and what are its limitations?
Besides good will, are the benefits of allowing access to my waterfront land?
How do I ensure access?
What tools are available to secure and enhance waterfront access or to protect my rights when I provide access?
If someone gets injured while using my land, can I be held liable?
Maine's Landowner Liability Law protects landowners, should someone become injured while using their land. The Maine Landowner Liability law limits the liability of landowners who knowingly or unknowingly provide access to their land for recreational or harvesting purposes, such as clamming. The law also acts as a disincentive to litigation by requiring that the parties bringing a suit against a landowner must pay legal and court fees in the event that the litigant loses. Landowners are not required to maintain their land safe for public use but should be aware that they can be held liable for willfully failing to guard against injury. Since the law was enacted in 1979, no landowner in Maine has been found liable, or at fault, for accidents that have occurred on their land by persons who are using those lands.
For more information on landowner liability, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has produced a useful webpage at: maine.gov/lor/brochures/LandownerLiability_2008.pdf. To see the language of the law itself, please refer to: mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/14/title14sec159-A.html
Who can own access rights?
Individuals and private user groups, federal, state and local governments, and land trusts can all own access rights. Ownership can also be held in trust by governments acting as trustees for the public at large (the public trust doctrine) or land trusts acting as trustees for the intents of the person who donated the land.
What is traditional land ownership?
Traditional land ownership included ownership of the full title, the right to eject (keep out trespassers), the right to transfer (sell or give the land way). Ownership need not be absolute; it can be split, such as by an easements or a right of way.
What is property owned in trust?
Property owned in trust consists of the property itself, the trustee or holder of the property (who will often be the manager of the property), and the beneficiary of the trust, or the person or organization who receives any benefits from the property. Land trusts – thought often set up as private charitable organizations rather than actual trusts – assist landowners in conserving their land. Land trusts can act as trustees or whole owners of property.
What is a public trust?
A public trust consists of the same three parts as a regular trust: the trust property (or the public’s right to that property), the trustee (the state), and the beneficiary of the trust (the public). The public trust doctrine is a legal concept that applies a public trust ownership to lands that have traditionally been public, such as submerged tidal lands. Because the state owns such land in trust, it cannot give the land to private owners.
Where can I find more information?
Access to Coastal and Inland Waters, the Public Use of Private Lands
Public Shoreline Access in Maine: A Citizen’s Guide to Ocean and Coastal Law (revised). Duff, J. 2004. Orono and Portland, ME: Maine Sea Grant and the Marine Law Institute.