Is it a boat or is it a floating residence?
In a case that could affect floating residence owners across the country, the Atlanta-based 11th District Court of Appeals in Miami heard oral arguments Wednesday surrounding the City of Riviera Beach’s 2009 confiscation of a floating residence that the city insisted was a vessel or a boat — and not a home.
Fane Lozman, 49, owned the structure in question: a two-story floating building valued at about $35,000 brand new. The political activist and gadfly first bumped heads with Riviera Beach officials when he successfully challenged the city’s attempt to use eminent domain laws to allow a private developer to build condos on a publicly owned marina site.
He filed a successful civil claim against the city in state court in 2007, claiming Riviera Beach engaged in a pattern of retaliation against him by attempting to evict his floating structure from that public marina. Despite Lozman’s state court victory, Riviera Beach in 2009 “arrested” his home on grounds that under federal admiralty law it was an illegally docked vessel that the city had the right to evict.
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Federal Appeals Court to hear Riviera Beach Floating House Case
May 18, 2011
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Is it a boat or is it a floating residence?
In a case that could affect floating residence owners across the country, the Atlanta-based 11th District Court of Appeals in Miami heard oral arguments Wednesday surrounding the City of Riviera Beach’s 2009 confiscation of a floating residence that the city insisted was a vessel or a boat — and not a home.
Fane Lozman, 49, owned the structure in question: a two-story floating building valued at about $35,000 brand new. The political activist and gadfly first bumped heads with Riviera Beach officials when he successfully challenged the city’s attempt to use eminent domain laws to allow a private developer to build condos on a publicly owned marina site.
He filed a successful civil claim against the city in state court in 2007, claiming Riviera Beach engaged in a pattern of retaliation against him by attempting to evict his floating structure from that public marina. Despite Lozman’s state court victory, Riviera Beach in 2009 “arrested” his home on grounds that under federal admiralty law it was an illegally docked vessel that the city had the right to evict.
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The Fane Lozman Story
This is a true story of a persistent and tenacious underdog who fought against the governmental seizure of 2200 homes and businesses in 2006 only to see that same government arrest and destroy his floating home three years later, for an alleged failure to pay one month’s rent at the marina. Fane Lozman did not give up but continued the improbable climb from a county court eviction case to the US Supreme Court.
