Posts by Lake Property Law PLC
Surveyor Use of Traverse/Meander Lines Violates U.S. Constitution and Federal Laws
All use of traverse and meander lines in the creation of subdivisions and land divisions by certified surveys pursuant to Michigan legislation such as the Plat Act of 1929, the Land Division Act of 1967 and the Certified Surveys Act of 1972, violate the Property and Supremacy Clauses of the United States Constitution and the…
Read MoreTownship and County Civil Rights Liability for Use of Traverse Lines in Subdivisions
Local governments (counties, townships, cities and villages) in Michigan must approve subdivision platsbefore they can be recorded. This statutory plat approval requirement assures its citizens that the government has duly considered the rights and obligations of individuals whose lots are to be located within or in proximiy to the plat. When a plat is made…
Read MoreRiparian Attorneys Expose Michigan Judges to Civil Rights Claims
Judges are protected by absolute immunity when they act in a judicial capacity for nearly every decision they are called upon to make. For absolute judicial immunity to apply, however, a judge must not have acted in the complete absence of all subject matter jurisdiction. Michigan courts regularly have been and are exposed to civil…
Read MoreMichigan’s Century-Old Legislative Assault on Private Property
How did state government regulation of water suddenly, in approximately 1920, justify it running rampant over private ownership of water covered lands that will never be riparian because the federal government created them two centuries ago as land and sold them into private ownership? Michigan government has been very intentional in attempting to add water…
Read MoreWhat Water is Riparian? Read the Plat Like the Pioneers
Many of the pioneers who braved the wilderness and settled in these lands two centuries ago lacked formal education. However, they had no problem traveling by foot, horse or mule and locating and observing the boundaries of the land they were interested in buying, then later paying the $1.25 per acre purchase price at a…
Read MoreNe-Bo-Shone, Collins, and the Pine River Fiasco
Collins v Gerhardt, 237 Mich 38, (1926), and Ne-Bo-Shone Ass’n, Inc. v Hogarth, 7 F Supp 885, (W.D. Mich 1934), are cases which involved a river or stream which is located in Lake County and known as the Pine River. The primary issue in both matters as conceded by all parties and the courts was…
Read MoreBauman v Barendregt; Embarrassing Decision
This case may very well be the most oft cited, but among the very worst, as authority for a body of water being riparian. With the federal government having already determined that the entire land at issue in this matter was owned in fee simple, forever, under the U.S. Constitution and federal statutes, what the…
Read MoreSquare Lake Is Not Riparian; Ordinance Violates Civil Rights of Owners
The Michigan Supreme Court in Square Lake Hills Condo v Bloomfield Township (1991) ruled that a township has authority to regulate the docking and launching of boats on an inland riparian lake by enacting a police power ordinance instead of a zoning ordinance. The ordinance limited riparian property owners who could launch or dock a motor…
Read MoreMichigan Waters; A Constitutional Catastrophe
By Lake Property Law PLC | March 7, 2022 The U.S. Constitution and the federal statutes enacted pursuant to its wording directed how lands and water bodies of 30 states west of the original colonies were to be created. Those same statutes directed that once surveyed as land or once determined to be a water body by the…
Read MoreLand and Water Boundaries
Michigan lands and waters were surveyed in the early to mid-1800’s by the Government Land Office (GLO) of the Dept. of Treasury in accord with the Public Land Survey System. The PLSS is a series of Land Acts which were passed by Congress from 1785 to 1832 through the initiative of Ben Franklin and others…
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