By DOTTY NIST
A number of Dune Allen property owners are seeking court judgments that their lots in the south Walton County subdivision include “accreted lands” extending all the way to the mean high water line (MHWL) of the gulf.
Pending in Walton County Circuit Court are two separate but almost identical lawsuits alleging ownership of these lands by plaintiff lot owners. One case filed in October 2023 involves three properties and another filed in December 2023 involves another property.
The properties included lie west of the Vizcaya development and the public Lake Causeway Neighborhood Beach Access, although not adjacent to the access, and south of Oyster Lake and CR-30A.
The lawsuits have been filed against Dune Allen Beach, Inc., developer of the subdivision.
While many privately-owned beach properties in Walton County are deeded to the MHWL, the deeds for the parcels that are the subject of these quiet title lawsuits do not refer to the MHWL. Instead, the deeds had conveyed land 315 feet in length from north to south.
The plaintiff property owners maintain that the south end of the 315 feet had been the location of the MHWL in 1967 when the properties were conveyed—and that the intent had been to convey the lots to the MHWL.
They also maintain that since that time the MHWL “has migrated south resulting in accretion of lands south of the Plaintiffs’ properties,” (accretion meaning natural increase in land area along the coast)—and that the property owners are therefore entitled to ownership of this accreted land to the south as part of their parcels.
Dune Allen Beach, Inc., has answered the lawsuits, countering that the intent had not been to convey parcel ownership to the MHWL but instead to convey the properties based on metes and bounds legal descriptions set forth in the deeds—which the property owners and their predecessors had accepted and refrained from contesting over a period of decades since conveyance.
Dune Allen Beach, Inc., maintains that over that time period the company has “used and developed Dune Allen Beach Subdivision as it was originally intended; to wit, as a subdivision containing a community beach located between the southern border of the Plaintiffs’ respective parcels and the MHWL.”
Dune Allen Beach, Inc., also argues that, as subdivision developer and also a property owner in the subdivision, the company, along with other owners in the subdivision “who have a right to recreational use of the community beach” would be injured if the lot owners’ requests were granted.
The two cases are numbered 2023-CA-601 and 2023-CA-671. No other parties have intervened in the lawsuits at this time, and no hearing dates have been set.
