Looking at two properties on Lake Travis, both of which have floating docks in the water at these low levels. One has ownership to the middle of the river. The second has a property line that goes into the water at higher levels, but the water is currently beyond their property line. The boat dock is currently attached to an undesignated area directly beyond their property line. Does the second property have any legal or practical issues to using their dock or accessing the water? Crosspost in Outdoors.

Lake Travis is kind of quickly in that there are tracts of privately owned submerged lands everywhere. Some even separate "lakefront" property from the water, depending on the water level.

The plats shown with the listing show the property boundaries along with the lake at some normal or max level. One property goes well into the middle of the lake and states so in their property description. The other place stops at the lake.

I haven't retained an agent yet. My assumption is that LCRA owns the property between the lake and the water and hopefully has no interest in worrying about access while the lake is low. As you mentioned, the dock permit may clear this up.

What I like about the two locations is that they are on the main channel and not in a cove. The docks won't get squeezed out by neighbors' docks, even at lower levels.

Now it might be fine. But the LCRA has been known to change their mind from time to time and it might not be fine later. I would want to own to the center of the channel. A realtor probably won't know the actual answer unless they have lots of experience out there.

I talked with someone that lived out there and heard that the earliest owners had ownership to the middle of the river and that later owners owned only to the "full" line. They weren't sure what the triggering event was between the two classes of owners. Their thought was that LCRA probably didn't care, as long as there were no permanent structures beyond the actual property line. As noted above, LCRA's interest may vary over time.

Lake Buchanan's shore like changed due to infill over time. There was an additional ~acre of land between my parents' original waterfront property to what it is today. The LCRA began selling the new tracts, giving the current owners first rights to purchase. Of course my parents bought it, but I always wonder why they should have to. The original property was plotted to the edge of the water.

IIRC, the abutting landowners were permitted to keep the land if they wanted to, since Lake Travis isn't a constant level lake.