Riparian rights
Riparian rights, which Virginia statute calls riparian or littoral rights, are the rights and privileges that come with owning land beside a river, creek or other body of water. In Virginia those rights extend to the mean low-water mark but no farther, unless the stream lies within a lawful survey.
Riparian or littoral: how the Code of Virginia names a waterside owner's rights
Riparian or littoral rights is the phrase the Code of Virginia itself uses. Va. Code 28.2-1202, the section on how far waterside land reaches, refers to an adjacent landowner's riparian or littoral rights: rights that belong to whoever owns the land beside the water.
The same section sets how far those rights reach: the bounds of a tract lying on a river or creek, and the rights and privileges of its owner, stop at the mean low-water mark unless the stream lies within a lawful survey.
So the word describes a bundle attached to waterside land, and the mean low-water mark is its ordinary outer edge. What lies past that edge, and when a lawful survey under a special grant changes the answer, is a separate question taken up in who owns the riverbed in Virginia. The low, level ground a creek runs through is a landform, not a right, and has its own entry at bottomland.
The water policy chapter limits the use of stream water, and two narrow exceptions cover work on the bed
Owning the bank does not mean owning the flow. Virginia's water policy chapter limits the right to the use of water from a natural stream and says that right does not extend to waste or unreasonable use; the full sentence, and where it sits among the withdrawal rules, is in springs, creeks and water rights.
That section, Va. Code 62.1-11 E, is a policy declaration. How it plays out between two owners on the same creek, and what counts as unreasonable in a given dispute, is a question for an attorney rather than for a glossary.
Two exceptions in Va. Code 28.2-1203 show the word doing real work. Subsection A 5 lets owners of riparian lands place private noncommercial piers in the waters opposite their land after an application to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, subject to size and navigation limits written into the section. Subsection A 7 covers irrigation and watering animals on riparian lands, subject to three conditions of its own.
Neither exception is the whole permit story. VMRC says dock size depends on factors that include navigation and how close a dock sits to a neighbor's riparian rights, and the permit path for a pier on nontidal water such as the New River is laid out in can I build a dock on the New River.
Where the term surfaces when a deed calls for a creek, a river or a lake
In a Southwest Virginia sale, riparian rights usually come up as a question about the deed: does the tract actually touch the water, or does a strip owned by someone else sit between the last boundary call and the bank?
The answer matters because the statute speaks of riparian or littoral rights as an adjacent landowner's rights. A buyer who assumes frontage from a map or a view, and not from the recorded description, may be buying a view of the water rather than land beside it.
Lake ground shows the point clearly. At Claytor Lake, Appalachian Power says it owns nearly all the land below the 1,850-foot contour, with the full pond at 1,846 feet, and holds flowage easement rights where it does not. A lot described as lakefront there may stop short of the shoreline on paper.
Selling land whose deed runs to a creek or river?
Send the county and the deed or tax map number, and Lowell will look at how the land meets the water and flag the deed questions worth putting to a title examiner before a buyer asks. No cost, no obligation.
Got it. Thank you.
We'll be in touch shortly with an honest read.
Questions about this term
Does land with a view of the river come with riparian rights?
Not because of the view. Virginia statute speaks of riparian or littoral rights as an adjacent landowner's rights, and it runs the bounds and rights of land lying on rivers and creeks to the mean low-water mark. Whether a tract actually lies on the water, or stops at a strip someone else owns, is shown by the recorded description, and a title examiner or attorney reads it.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- Va. Code 28.2-1202: rights of owners of land on bays, rivers and creeks, to the mean low-water mark Code of Virginia
- Va. Code 28.2-1203: unlawful use of beds of bays, rivers and creeks; exceptions A 5 and A 7 Code of Virginia
- Va. Code 62.1-11: water policy declaration Code of Virginia
- Habitat Management overview Virginia Marine Resources Commission
- Claytor Project shoreline FAQs Appalachian Power