Real Property & Water Law

By Matthew Blanksma, Legal Intern** Coeur d’Alene, ID — June 12, 2017. If you own, use, or are thinking of acquiring property in North Idaho, you may be affected by an Idaho Court’s recent ruling in the Coeur d’Alene Spokane River Basin Adjudication. The water right you buy with that property may be affected by…

Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, May 18, 2017. Imagine: you’ve saved up diligently for years and are now ready to buy that picturesque land out in the country you’ve been yearning for. You make your down payment, sign the papers, get the loan, and everything checks out at closing. Success! Now it’s time to start building that…

By Art Macomber, Attorney Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, May 10, 2017. Have you ever considered that if your neighbor doesn’t pay his property taxes and the county or city takes the property you could lose your easement and not be able to drive home for dinner? This is a question now before the Idaho State Supreme…

Published in the Idaho State Bar Advocate Magazine, June/July 2016. by Gregory M. George Recent years have seen a raft of new ideas on how to reduce pollution of air and water. Most people have heard of the “cap-and-trade” policy proposed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.1 Similar ideas to reduce water pollution, however, have…

Published in the Idaho State Bar Advocate Magazine September 19, 2013 by: Arthur B. Macomber, Member, Real Property Section, Idaho State Bar. Synopsis: This article discusses Idaho law defining prescriptive or adverse possession claims as vested rights that a title owner of record has to “recover,” instead of rights contingent on quiet title adjudication.[1] With the 2006 change…

NOTE: The Idaho law in this article was current as of the date of its publication in 2007. Synopsis This article will provide a comparison of the North Idaho Adjudication (NIA) with the Snake River Basin Adjudication (SRBA), an overview of the adjudication process, and potential NIA issues. Introduction In 2006, the Idaho State Legislature…

NOTE: The Idaho law in this article was current as of the date of its publication in 2009. Synopsis The Idaho Water Adjudication Court (“the Court”) has the power to declare the existence of basinwide issues for the purpose of adjudicating matters affecting large numbers of water rights holders. As that Court continues the Coeur…

NOTE: The Idaho law in this article was current as of the date of its publication in 2011, and may not be current. Synopsis: This short note will discuss the question of whether an existing water right may be fractionalized and partially assigned to a third-party to provide more than one beneficial use from the…

NOTE: The Idaho law in this article was current as of the date of its publication in 2007. Synopsis Idaho Code section 55-2109 mandates ad valorem county taxation on conservation easements gifted or sold to charitable organizations.  This article discusses the legality of that statute, which appears to abridge Idaho’s Constitution on uniform taxation and…

Idaho Water Rights Primer The State of Idaho began adjudicating water rights in the Coeur d’Alene-Spokane River Basin in the spring of 2009. The first of the three Adjudication areas is the Coeur d’Alene Spokane River Basin, so this process is called the CSRBA. The CSRBA is divided into five sub-basins, which the Idaho Department…