Legal aspects of using inland surface waters to satisfy residential needs in Poland

This article attempts to determine the rules for lawful use of floating objects for residential purposes. It presents the currently existing legal solutions applied in Europe for such floating structures. Further, the article describes a classification of residential floating objects from the legal perspective. The existing regulations are analyzed with regard to the provisions of the Water Law Act and the Inland Navigation Act. Moreover, the paper describes three different types of water usage, i.e. common, ordinary and special, and discusses in which of these forms the residential use of public waters falls. The analysis allows for the determination of the directions of further research, so that an accurate procedure ensuring a lawful use of houseboats can be adopted.