Who owns water areas?

While a lake has no boundary markers, property boundaries may still run across a water body. So who owns water areas in Finland?

The ownership of water areas is usually linked to property ownership. A water body may belong to a single property, either because it is entirely contained within its land area, or because it has been assigned to this property in a cadastral survey. However, typically a water area is shared, meaning that it belongs to several properties.

Property owners with a share in the same water area make up a ‘joint property management association of a water area’. There are more than 20,000 such associations in Finland, and large water bodies may be divided between several management associations.

A joint property management association may be organised or non-organised. An organised management association has rules and regular meetings. Non-organised associations meet when needed and can be convened by any shareholder.

Some inland waters are public water areas. They are owned by the State of Finland and managed by Metsähallitus. Public water areas comprise large open stretches of lakes at minimum eight kilometres in width and length. They are found in such lakes as Saimaa, Oulujärvi and Päijänne. In total, there are more than 600,000 hectares of public water areas in Finnish lakes.

To obtain information about who owns water areas, you can contact your municipality or the regional Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY Centre). You can also examine the property boundaries of water areas on the MapSite web service maintained by the National Land Survey of Finland.

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