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South Louisiana Water Rights: Does Your Deed Say What You Think It Does? | RE: Real Estate Podcast
Primary Goal
Understand how the navigable vs. non-navigable distinction controls your waterfront property rights in South Louisiana – and know what to verify before you buy or build.
Keywords / Tags
south louisiana water rights, louisiana waterfront property, navigable water louisiana, bayou frontage property rights, bayou lafourche real estate, batture louisiana, coastal erosion property loss, waterfront property south louisiana, louisiana surveyor waterfront, built to own podcast
Episode Description
Are you sure your deed says what you think it does? In South Louisiana, waterfront property rights depend on a single legal classification – navigable vs. non-navigable – and most buyers never ask the question.
In this episode, Clint and Ben break down the invisible legal lines that separate private ownership from state ownership on Louisiana's bayous, rivers, and coast. They cover batture, accretion, dereliction, and coastal erosion – and explain exactly what buyers and current owners should verify before closing or building.
🎙️ RE: Real Estate Podcast is available on YouTube & wherever you get your podcasts.
Website: rerealestatepodcast.com
Chapters
● 00:00 Cold open – two pieces of bayou frontage, two different sets of rights
● 00:37 Welcome & series overview – Act 1 finale of Built to Own
● 04:19 Disclaimer: consult a licensed surveyor and Louisiana real estate attorney
● 05:36 Navigable vs. non-navigable – the classification that controls everything
● 06:37 State owns the water bottom – what waterfront ownership really means
● 08:21 Local context: Bayou Lafourche and the Percy Brown Bridge
● 09:30 Real deal: Leeville sale with submerged water bottom rights
● 11:30 Batture – the strip between the high water mark and the levee
● 13:01 Accretion and dereliction – when property lines grow or recede
● 15:01 Erosion: the daily reality of coastal Louisiana land loss
● 18:13 Homework: get a current survey; what buyers must do before closing
● 20:46 Act 1 wrap-up & Act 2 preview – ownership on-ramps
Sound Bites
● "Two pieces of bayou frontage that look identical from the air can have completely different legal rights."
● "If the water is navigable, the bed beneath the water generally belongs to the state, not to you."
● "My property goes to the water doesn't mean what most people think it means."
● "A current survey from a licensed Louisiana surveyor is one of the most leverage-producing documents you can own."
● "Do not close without two things: a current survey paid for by the buyer, and a conversation with a Louisiana real estate attorney."
Resources
● Louisiana Civil Code – Ownership of Riverbeds & Water Rights: legis.la.gov
● Louisiana Dept. of Natural Resources – Coastal Management: coastal.la.gov
● LA Board of Registration for Professional Land Surveyors: lsbpels.louisiana.gov
● U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – New Orleans District: mvn.usace.army.mil
Hashtags
#RERealEstatePodcast #SouthLouisianaRealEstate #WaterRights #LouisianaRealEstate #WaterfrontProperty #RealEstatePodcast #BuiltToOwn #BayouLafourche #CoastalLouisiana #KellerWilliams
About the Hosts
Clint Galliano & Ben Harang are REALTORS® with Keller Williams Realty Bayou Partners, serving the Houma–Thibodaux area of South Louisiana.
Production
Produced by RE: Real Estate Podcast · Hosted by Clint Galliano & Ben Harang · Keller Williams Realty Bayou Partners
Click here to watch a video of this episode.
Click here to watch a video of this episode.
Creators and Guests
Host
Ben Harang
Ben Harang brings over 30 years of experience as a licensed agent and currently works with Keller Williams Realty Bayou Partners. Ben’s experience includes single family residential sales, large land sales, subdivision development, building new construction residential and commercial projects and selling REO/Foreclosed properties.
What is RE: Real Estate Podcast?
Ben Harang and Clint Galliano discuss buying & selling Louisiana real estate in black & white.
Clint C. Galliano (00:00.156)
can knock it out in one take again.
Clint C. Galliano (00:05.488)
Mm-hmm.
Clint C. Galliano (00:10.13)
Mark one Two pieces of bayou frontage that look identical from the air can have a completely jinx myself.
Clint C. Galliano (00:26.662)
Mark two
Clint C. Galliano (00:30.918)
Two pieces of bayou frontage that look identical from the air can have completely different legal rights. One owner can build a dock, lease water access, and tell a stranger to get off their property. Get off my lawn. The other can't do any of that. Today, we make sure you know which side you're on. This is Built to Own.
Clint C. Galliano (00:58.77)
Okay.
Ben Harang (01:02.432)
I kinda like it. See what depends what kind of mood you're in when you add it, yeah. Okay.
Clint C. Galliano (01:04.145)
We'll see how it sounds. Yeah.
Ben Harang (01:14.838)
We're ready to go.
Clint C. Galliano (01:16.167)
Ready to go.
Ben Harang (01:21.218)
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the RE Real Estate Podcast. My name is Ben Harang. And with me is my co-host, Clint Galliano. We're five weeks into the Build to Own series. And today's the final episode of Act One. The private, the pri the I'm gonna start this over.
Ben Harang (01:48.374)
Mark two.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the RE Real Estate Podcast. My name is Ben Harang, and with me today, as always, is my co-host, Clint Galliano. We're five weeks into our Built to Own series, and today is the final episode of Act One, the Property Rights Act. We've covered the bundle of sticks, Louisiana civil law, mineral rights.
Today we close out the property rights conversation with the topic that hits closest to home for anyone in South Louisiana: water rights. After today, the series pivots to how you actually get into ownership. Clint, this one's home turf for both of us around here.
Clint C. Galliano (02:40.726)
Yeah it is. Before we get into it. How you doing, Ben?
Ben Harang (02:45.995)
I'm doing terrific. How you doing, Clint?
Clint C. Galliano (02:48.803)
I'm doing wonderful. All right. So I'll say this up front. Experience that you and I have with camps and waterfront property and practical realities of owning something with a bayou running through it. That's real. And we'll use it to make the topic concrete. But we're both going to be careful and not drift from a here's what we've seen into a here's what you should do.
The legal complexity on waterfront property in Louisiana is significant. we don't know everything. we hope to have a conversation, a whole episode dedicated to talking about property rights and inheritance and stuff like that with a Louisiana real estate attorney and maybe get some of the deeper questions answered. but today we're here to educate.
And action items are still gonna route you to an attorney and a surveyor. So, you know, we're we're we're not the experts, we're just giving you information.
Ben Harang (03:58.51)
Mm-hmm. All right, let's get into it. so waterfront property in Louisiana is one of the most legally complex categories in American real estate. The rules combine federal navigation law, Louisiana civil law, parish level zoning, coastal regulations, and a body of common sense.
practical reality that doesn't always match what the deed says.
Clint C. Galliano (04:31.483)
Today we cover two things navig navigable that's a word navigable versus non-navigable distinction. It controls almost everything else. And the four ways your property line can move on waterfront property. That's batture accretion, dereliction, and erosion.
Ben Harang (04:56.701)
All right. That's also batture or batture he had a little French twist on that one. So if if you if you recall in episode two, we established the bundle of sticks. In episode three we showed Louisiana civil law handle how Louisiana civil law handles those sticks differently. Today we look at how water specifically affects three of those sticks at once.
use, exclude, and profit in ways most owners never check.
Clint C. Galliano (05:33.643)
After today's episode, Act 1 ends and we pivot. Episode 6 starts Act 2 with the ownership on ramps. With the ownership on ramps, a sharp tonal shift from legal mechanics back to practical action steps for people who don't own yet.
Ben Harang (05:56.078)
Alright, so here's our disclaimer. We're gonna get into some deep stuff and we don't have all the answers, so we just need to to plow through the disclaimer. Before we go any further, nothing in this episode is legal, surveying, engineering, or financial advice. Waterfront property law is highly fact specific in Louisiana. And the difference between two situations that look identical can be the difference between being able to build a dock or not.
Between owning waterfront and owning and finding out the state actually owns part of what you thought was yours. Every example in this episode is illustrative only. Before you act on anything you hear today, consult a licensed Louisiana surveyor and a licensed Louisiana real estate attorney. Consult your parish coastal zone or floodplain office for any actual development plans.
We're here to put the framework in front of you. The application is yours and your professionals.
All right, Clint, we got that out of the way. Let's start with the foundation. What's the difference between navigable and non navigable water and why does it control everything else?
Clint C. Galliano (07:16.827)
So
Clint C. Galliano (07:20.538)
We're
In Louisiana, every body of water gets classified one of two ways, as navigable or non-navigable. The classification controls almost every other waterfront question. Who owns what, who can use the water, and what you can build, and who you can exclude.
Ben Harang (07:45.944)
So navigable waters is legally defined, but in practical terms, water that's used for commerce and that connects to interstate or ocean going traffic. Most major buyers in our region, portions of Bayou Lafouche, portions of Bayou Terrebonne the intercoastal waterway, the Atchafalya River Basin are all navigable bodies of water.
Clint C. Galliano (08:15.023)
non-navigable waters are smaller bayous, canals, ponds, drainage waterways, and intermittent streams that don't meet the navigability standard.
Ben Harang (08:27.115)
The legal consequence is real. If the water is navigable, the bed beneath the water generally belongs to the state, not to you. Even if your property line touches the water, the public has rights to use that water for navigation. You cannot exclude boats. You cannot fence off the water.
Clint C. Galliano (08:51.057)
So and I I think that's something that, you know, we hear navigable water. Well, to me that's like a navigable road, you know, it's like if you can access it, then you're free to travel on it. The problem is, I think, is w the definition of navigable and that use for commerce is probably one of the things that
helps to restrict things. Ben and I were talking before we started recording. We we know of situations where the, you know, the the way people understood things was that if you can drive a boat in it, then you can be there. But there are some private land areas that are gated off
and you can't have access to it or the public can't have access to it, to the waterways, even though they are navigable from a sense that you can drive a boat in it. And so that's one of the things that we don't know about because people have been prosecuted for trespassing on these properties, because they drove through somebody's canal. So that that's gonna be one of the questions that
when we sit down with the attorney that we try and get some clarification on. That being said,
Ben Harang (10:19.337)
In and well let me say one one thing about Bayou Lafourche which I spend a lot of time in. Bayou Lafourche is navigable, my understanding, from what is referred to as the Percy Brown Bridge South. that's the first fixed span bridge across Bayou Lafourche.
Clint C. Galliano (10:24.721)
Okay. Yep.
Ben Harang (10:43.029)
The St. Charles Bridge is the next one. That's a movable span. Then you get to into Raceland and Lockport. All of the bridges south are movable so they can be open for marine traffic. so owning property above the Percy Brown Bridge and below the Percy Brown Bridge are different. I'm not gonna pretend to tell you exactly how different they are, but one you're on a navigable body.
the other one you're not on a navigable body. So that's just right here, right outside of Thibodaux is where where the transition starts and stops. So all right, let's get back to our
Clint C. Galliano (11:22.457)
And and so the so well and and I wanna still keep going on that tangent in the other direction.
I sold a piece of property down in Leeville that the actual property description used to include marshland that has since eroded. And it was only the bulkheaded portion that was outside the water, but the rights to the property included the water bottom that.
went out for almost a whole other acre besides what was bulkheaded. And so that was considered part of that property and sold with that property. So that gave the buyer the opportunity to build a wharf that ran out into this bay. and you know, talking about navigable or non navigable, it depends on
which way the wind was blowing and if the tide had gone out, if you could actually navigate up to it other than the, you know, where they had washed out to get to the bulkheaded area. So it that kind of goes in the other direction. And even if the the land is gone, it's still considered their property. All right. Moving on.
Ben Harang (12:48.487)
Mm-hmm. All right. So the legal conce
Clint C. Galliano (12:53.049)
All right. Couldn't you just do that one?
Clint C. Galliano (13:00.581)
You can't f yeah, 'cause you cannot fence the water off. All right. So I'm gonna jump in the next one. On non navigable water, the rules flip. The bed and the water are typically part of the private property. You may be able to exclude, you may be able to build further out. Your control of the water itself is generally greater.
Ben Harang (13:01.781)
Yes, yes. Okay. So you're up. You're up.
Ben Harang (13:22.975)
This is why my property goes to the water doesn't mean what most people think it means. On navigable water, your property goes to the water, but the water itself and the bed under it may belong to the public.
Clint C. Galliano (13:43.74)
So practical question that listeners can ask is, is your waterway shown on official navigation charts? Is it used by commercial traffic? Does it connect to commercially used water? If the answer is yes, it's likely navigable. If you don't know, a surveyor will.
Ben Harang (14:08.179)
Okay. let's get into the property lines that move. We'll start with the first concept. The batcher the batcher or the bature, or how do you say it, Clint? Bature. All right. yeah. I'm I'm born and raised here. I cannot rule an OR.
Clint C. Galliano (14:23.141)
Batture batture
Gotta roll that R.
Ben Harang (14:35.649)
So in plain English, a bature is a land between the ordinary high water mark of a navigable river and the levee or the natural bank. It's a strip that's sometimes dry and sometimes underwater, depending on the river or bayou stage level.
Clint C. Galliano (14:55.131)
The legal classification of batture is complicated and varies depending on the specific water body and the specific history of the parcel. In some cases, the batture is privately owned. In others, it's public or state owned. In others, ownership is contested. the most common example of batture is when you go down the bayou it's the section of land between the edge of the road and the edge of the water.
Ben Harang (15:26.719)
Right. And and the legal descriptions generally run perpendicular to the bodies of water. so why does it matter? People buy property thinking the battery is theirs and then find out it's not, or vice versa. The survey is the only document that can tell you which it is.
Clint C. Galliano (15:48.367)
Alright, concept B accretion. the fancy name for it is alluvion.
All right, so the plain English accretion, it's also called alluvion under Louisiana law, is when sediment slowly builds up on a riverbank or shoreline and creates new land. When it happens gradually, that new land generally belongs to the adjacent property owner. Now, this isn't something that's common in our area, unfortunately. The only place where we can observe accretion is areas like the
Delta of the Atchafalya River and some of the offshoots down near the mouth of the Mississippi where it's actually building land.
Ben Harang (16:36.351)
Yeah, so the an example is a slow build up of silt over decades and the Atchafalaya I builds up annually. extends the property's frontage by several feet. Under accretion the property owner gets that new land.
Clint C. Galliano (16:58.617)
All right. Yeah.
Ben Harang (17:01.581)
You got the caveat.
Clint C. Galliano (17:03.395)
I got okay, I missed that. Yep. All right. I thought you had caveat. I jumped over that whole section. No worries. All right, caveat. As Ben said, this is a slow, gradual process. Sudden changes, like a hurricane creating land overnight. Again, we d we don't see a whole lot of that either. Generally follow different rules.
Ben Harang (17:28.781)
All right, moving on to concept C, dereliction. plain version plain English version is dereliction is when water permanently recedes from land that was previously underwater. The newly exposed land generally belongs to the adjacent property owner.
Clint C. Galliano (17:51.154)
An example is a small bayou shifts its course and abandons an old channel. The dry bed of the old channel may become the property of the adjacent owner.
Ben Harang (18:02.935)
So this is rare in Louisiana, in coastal Louisiana, because we're largely losing land, not gaining it, but it happens, especially with smaller waterways and natural channel shifts.
Clint C. Galliano (18:19.313)
All right, let's talk about concept D. This is one that everybody down here should be familiar with. Erosion. So plain English, erosion is the opposite of accretion. When water gradually takes land away from a property and the property line generally moves with the water, the owner loses that land.
Ben Harang (18:40.253)
This is the daily reality in coastal Louisiana. Subsidence, sea level changes, and storm impact have moved property lines inland for decades.
Clint C. Galliano (18:53.113)
So practical consequence, a property that was 50 foot deep waterfront in 1980 may be 35 foot deep in 2026. The lost depth isn't coming back, and it isn't the owners anymore. So a further example of that is if you're familiar with the beach at Fourchon there used to be a bay called Bay Champagne or
if you're from Thibodaux, you call it Bay Champagne. And I remember as a hey, that that's pretty good. I'm as a kid, I I remember trawling in that bay with my grandfather, basically fishing for shrimp. And it was a nice big bay. We'd go in with a a decent sized skiff and trawl in there.
Ben Harang (19:25.133)
How about Champagne
In between there somehow.
Clint C. Galliano (19:49.848)
If you look at the map right now, there's almost no evidence of Bay Champagne there at the beach because the beach line has receded to have almost covered up that bay. And you know, the area where the bay was is now offshore. So it's and part of that is because of the way France
defined shorelines, Louisiana took that approach. And because of that, it's the high watermark as opposed to actual measured and defined line. So that's why we that's another part of why we're losing losing land. Well it's not the reason why, but it it's it's why it's hard to rebuild the land without going outside of the the rules, I guess.
Ben Harang (20:46.219)
You le you're losing the land you're losing the leg the land included in the legal description. is you no longer own it. And the example it went from twenty from fifty to thirty five feet. that's what you own now. So, all right. the next concept is state ownership of navigable water bottoms.
Clint C. Galliano (20:51.973)
Yes.
Ben Harang (21:12.373)
Some things, navigable waterbeds, certain shorelines, are owned by the state for the benefit of the public. They cannot be privately owned, no matter what the deed says.
Clint C. Galliano (21:27.727)
This prevents private owners from fencing off navigable water or excluding the public from coastal access in defined circumstances.
Ben Harang (21:38.829)
So why it matters, it's a legal floor underneath everything we discussed in segment one, even if your deed says one thing, the state may somet may say something different.
Clint C. Galliano (21:57.008)
All right. So that pretty much covers water rights. Now it's time for homework.
Ben Harang (22:07.745)
My least favorite thing in the world.
Clint C. Galliano (22:10.563)
come on, Ben. You know you loved homework.
I know I didn't.
Ben Harang (22:16.287)
Yeah.
Clint C. Galliano (22:19.395)
All right, so we've
We've got homework and it comes in two parts depending on your situation. First, if you own waterfront property in Louisiana of any kind, whether it's Bayou frontage, canal frontage, lakefront, coastal, locate your current survey. Pull that document. If you don't have one, or the one you have is more than a decade old, maybe it's time to get a new one.
Current survey from a licensed Louisiana surveyor is one of the most leverage-producing documents you can own. Not just in waterfront property, but overall. It tells you exactly where your property ends, whether your structures are inside the line, what servitudes are recorded, and whether the navigability status is what you assume. Second, if you're looking to buy waterfront property,
Do not close without two things. A current survey paid for by the buyer, you, not the seller, and a conversation with a Louisiana real estate attorney about navigability status of the water. Title insurance does not cover what most of what we discussed today. And the survey and the attorney conversation are what protect you. In both cases, the next step is the same.
licensed Louisiana surveyor for the survey itself and a Louisiana real estate attorney for anything you find that concerns you. Not a national online resource, not a Google search, local Louisiana professionals who handle this work specifically.
Ben Harang (24:01.919)
All right. so I think that wraps up another one. And one one thing that that Clint pointed out, if you're gonna buy it and you're gonna have a survey done, you buy the survey, you pay for the survey as the buyer, just so you know the surveyor.
was representing you. If there's any discrepancy, it can get clarified before it closes. If it's done for the seller, they may overlook discrepancies and just draw a line on the map. so you the buyer you you as the buyer want to get the survey done. Okay. So that's episode five of Built to Own and that wraps up Act one.
We've covered the mindset, the bundle of sticks, Louisiana civil law, mineral rights, and now water rights. You now have a framework for understanding what you own when you own property in South Louisiana. Next week we pivot to Act Two and open with the episode for everyone, for anyone who's ever said, I can't afford to own. If that's you or somebody in your life, do not miss that episode.
Clint C. Galliano (25:22.615)
If the property rights act of this series has put some new tools in your hands, if you understand the bundle of sticks better today than you did five weeks ago, share it with one person who you think needs the framework. That's how this series spreads. And that's how more working families in this region get the same information that's always been available to others.
And just want to remind you to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. watch us on YouTube. Make sure that you subscribe there so that next week's episode comes to you automatically.
Ben Harang (26:03.999)
Alright, so every episode audio and video are on RE: Real Estate Podcast dot com. You can watch the YouTube videos or listen to the audio there or wherever you get your podcast or whatever your favorite app is. subscribe, like wherever you see us, help us grow the channel. We've been doing this for it's almost a year and a half, man.
Clint C. Galliano (26:30.949)
Yeah, that's crazy.
Ben Harang (26:31.765)
It's it's been a minute. and w we were talking earlier about the first episode they're almost embarrassing to look at. Virginia Slims commercial says we've come a long way, baby. We've come a long way. We still have faces for radio. But but the quality of the presentation I think gets better every week. So I think that's it for now. Hope everybody has a good day.
Clint C. Galliano (26:45.489)
That's right.
Clint C. Galliano (26:53.231)
Yes, sir.
Clint C. Galliano (26:57.403)
Yep, that's another one in the can.
Ben Harang (27:00.119)
That is. See ya.