When you buy waterfront property, it's easy to assume the tidelands come with it. The reality is more complicated.
On most US coastlines, the state owns the beach, and that is the end of the conversation. Washington did something completely different, and right here on Hood Canal is where it shows most.
Washington sold what other states kept
When Washington became a state in 1889, its constitution gave the State ownership of every tideland up to the line of ordinary high tide. Oregon and California did the same. Then Washington started selling.
The Bush and Callow Acts of 1895 let the State sell tidelands for oyster growing at $1.25 an acre. About 47,000 acres went into private hands, most of it on Hood Canal and Willapa Bay. The sales didn't stop until 1971. What we live with now is a beach-by-beach patchwork that's more than a century old, which means that your house and your beach may actually be two different parcels.
Washington is what lawyers call a "non-riparian state." Owning the upland above the beach does not automatically give you the tideland in front of it. The two were often sold separately, sometimes to different people at different times.
So "waterfront" on a listing tells you about the view. It does not tell you who owns the sand. Tideland inclusion has to be confirmed parcel by parcel, every time.
Even when the tideland comes with the house, how far it reaches depends on when the State sold it:
Sold before 1911: generally runs to mean low tide.
Sold in 1911 or later: generally runs to extreme low tide.
Older federal patents may stop at the surveyor's meander line, with a strip of State-owned tideland sitting between you and the water.
Below extreme low tide, the State keeps the bedlands. Your neighbor may own a hundred yards farther out than you do. On Hood Canal, that's normal.
Your side lines aren't in your deed either.
The boundaries between you and the neighbors on either side are set by a court rule, not by your deed. On a straight shore, they run at right angles to the high tide line. In a cove or curve, they fan out along proportional lines. That second case causes a lot of neighbor disputes out here. If your beach sits in a curve, make sure you get the geometry confirmed before you build a single thing.
Orphan tidelands: Because tidelands and uplands were sold separately, some tidelands have no upland access at all. You see it on the Toandos Peninsula and around Hawk's Point. Buy only the tideland, and you may have to reach it by boat. Washington courts don't grant easements across the upland just because you need one.
Even a private beach isn't entirely private.
Every private tideland title carries a public trust the State can't give away. Below the high water mark, the public keeps the right to navigate, fish, and boat, no matter whose name is on the deed.
Walking on dry private tideland at low tide is a different, unsettled question. The Department of Ecology says owners may post against trespass, and the Washington Supreme Court has confirmed that naturally occurring clams on private tideland belong to the owner. The big exception is treaty harvest, a separate legal regime that predates every deed on this canal. More on that in next week's post.
What to do with all this information?
If you own, or are thinking about buying, a Hood Canal beach:
Pull the title commitment early and read Schedule B carefully. Ask questions and be sure that you understand what you are buying.
Get an ALTA survey from a surveyor who has done one on a Hood Canal tideland parcel before.
Take parcel-specific questions to a Washington-licensed real estate attorney.
None of this has to kill a deal. It is just the homework that comes with some of the most beautiful shoreline in the country.
Want the whole picture? This post comes from my free Hood Canal Tideland Owner's Guide, a 33-page plain-language look at ownership, treaty rights, permits, and risk on this shoreline. Get the free guide here.
This post is general information, not legal advice. Verify anything you plan to rely on with a licensed attorney and the relevant agencies.
