Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Lake Sumter
Thread: Lake Sumter
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Old 01-31-2023, 12:40 PM
BrianL99 BrianL99 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive View Post
As I understand it, any navigable water in Florida that has a public access cannot be privately owned.
I suspect Lake Sumter is not considered "navigable water" in FL (all states are different).

Typically, you can own the land under a lake and all around it. Assuming there's no water flowing into it from another source, you can essentially "own the lake" and prohibit public access ( believe that's true in FL. In some states, it depends on how large the impoundment is).

I don't know of any states that allows you to "own the water". I'm sure there are some and many make distinctions based on the size of the impoundment. I'm fairly certain in FL you can't "own" the water, merely the land under it.

In the case of Lake Sumter, it's either a Detention Basin or a Retention Basin (part of TV's drainage system) and it seems it would be owned by the CDD (they could certainly give you the answer). I highly doubt the CDD would have allowed the Developer to retain ownership.