Supreme Court to Decide: Is a Floating Home a Boat?
October 2, 2012
Byline: Associated Press
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court seems torn on when the law should treat some floating homes as houseboats and when it should treat them as houses.
The question came up Oct. 1 as the court was trying to figure out whether Riviera Beach, Fla. should have used maritime law to seize Fane Lozman’s floating home.
Lozman said the gray, two-story floating structure was not a boat, so he should have had some of the same protection against seizure as a land-based house. But the city and the lower courts said that since it had been towed several times to different marinas across hundreds of miles, it was a vessel, like a houseboat.
A ruling, which will be watched closely by operators of floating casinos, hotels and restaurants, will come later this year.
