I was reading this and thought it might interest people thinking of buying riverside properties etc…
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That’s very interesting. It’s not adhered to in several places along the Adour river.
possibly a case of " let sleeping dogs lie… until someone complains."
but important for a new/possible Owner to be aware of the fact that Owning doesn’t necessarily mean it’s Private 
Something to be thoroughly sure about, before agreeing to buy.
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That’s interesting as it may explain a situation that has erupted with one of my neighbours. I live at the end of a road near where it reaches the river. At the end there’s a loop similar to a roundabout. At the end is a farm with their entrance being one of the exits off the ‘roundabout’. There is a public right of way through their courtyard and down a chemin that stops short of the river. I always found that odd. I could understand why there might have been a right of way to the river itself but this one stops at the field before the river. A few years ago the farm owners bought a tumbledown house on the opposite side of the road to the farm and immediately put up Private Property signs, one of them which also warns people about dangerous dogs. A quick look at the cadastral plan showed that part of the roundabout part of the road was not on public land but belonged to the tumbledown house. I thought it an odd decision but it doesn’t affect me in any way as I enter and leave my property before reaching the private bit. It did annoy others though and the Maire got involved. He was unhappy because the new private road had been maintained by the commune forever and there is a street light on it as well. The farm owners stood their ground. There was a bit more fuss when the unoccupied house behind the farm was sold because the farm owners claimed that the seller had no right of access across their land. Luckily for the seller he produced a deed from when his wife’s great grandfather had bought the house clearly stating access was allowed. I couldn’t understand why so much fuss was being made by people who didn’t live in the hamlet because very few of them would have been inconvenienced and the right of way to nowhere seemed irrelevant. This article might explain the missing link as it suggests that the right of way would have actually been to the river itself not a dead end.
Most anglers are aware of this right and I am aware of several confrontations it has caused. When it comes to exercising ones rights, be it on the riverbank, on the highway or anywhere else, my personal guideline is - the French always have right of way. That way my life runs very smoothly.
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We had the same situation at a riverside property. When we bought it there was a narrow strip of land some 80 cm wide that led from the highway to the river which was owned by tge commune. On the ground it was virtually non existent other than some steps at the bottom of the garden where it met the river. The vendor’s assured us that the path was never used and indeed throughout our ownership it never was.
When we sold 10 years later its existence was questioned by the purchaser and it looked at the time that the sale wouldn’t go through.
It was a public right of way to fish in the river and even though never used during our ownership the purchasers claimed rightly that it still could be.
Fortunately the purchasers were local and ‘in’ with the Mairie and lo and behold after some behind closed door discussion the public right of way became part of the 3 cadastral sections of land that formed the property.
An age old right of way that common sense thankfully dictated was no longer relevant.
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Excellent outcome for you !
Here. we’ve a few footpaths across fields etc which can pass right in front of someone’s front door… 
In most cases (but not always) , with strategic negotiations, said footpath gets closed and another made available elsewhere… 
It’s the knowing before buying… which is important… in my opinion.
A bit like the ancien chemin rurale which borders on the far side of the new bit of forest I bought adjoining my garden some months back. On the cadastral map it has no beginning or end but I have seen another map where it extends to the public road through the field at the the top. The bottom end merges into the garden of my
neighbour who rents his property from the commune. I mentioned it to the Maire, when he was here, that probably it goes through his garden because it aligns perfectly with the long driveway he has down the hill to the road.
All academic though as this chemin is so old and long unused, that there are mature trees growing within it along its length, it is only visible because it is sunken below the surrounding land although there is the trace of a rocky wall between it and me.
I love all this old stuff, the new parcelle I bought is clearly listed as one on the plan cadastral, but it has obviously been 2 in the dimmest of the past because there are the remains of another rocky wall down the middle of it. 
We found that there was a servitude on the maison secondaire we had just acquired, several years ago now. It covered just the very short route from the road to a lone walnut tree next to our barn. The tree was on the line of the border between our garden and the adjacent farmer’s field. The farmer came regularly, every year, to make sure we didn’t harvest his nuts.
The Servitude should have been disclosed by the Sellers of the property.
We had the opportunity to cancel our Purchase when we swiftly discovered there was an “undisclosed” Servitude on our land (the neighbour kept wandering/driving across our front garden into his barn) but we decided it wasn’t particularly annoying 
and now we’re glad we kept what has become our beloved French home. 
The Notaire spelled it out. It was such a small, specific servitude that it was no problem.
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We have a servitude across our field to an electricity pylon in the field beyond. The electricity company some years back drove a great cherry picker across our field and we then watched the technicians scrambling up the outside of the pylon to the top.
We didn’t know about the servitude until the day we sat with the notaire and bought our house. There were a couple of properties I looked at and rejected because the estate agents (fortunately) mentioned them along the lines of “it won’t be a problem” (oh yeh?) like not being able to reach the garage except by crossing the neighbour’s lawn!
My unkown servitude problem, mentioned elsewhere on here, was the opposite. The entrance we/I have been using for 33 years, to get to my only gate, crossed other land but without a servitude. I believe it is sorted now but I have not heard from, or received the bill from, the notaire.