A Stream through two lots

[Ian Gillespie]

I wonder if someone can help with a query or direct me to an appropriate example.

I have two parcels in separate titles with the same owner separated by a stream with a presumptive right of ownership.
I would like to show them as one lot without showing the stream.

One source of advice I have says 

The stream has been excluded from both titles. The stream once excluded may not simply be added back into the Title. Where AMF rights may apply, the stream bed to the centreline, may only be included again where a dry bed claim is applicable. The information you have supplied, infers that water still flows in this stream and therefore must remain excluded from the new parcels.

A second source says

This can be done as only one owner can claim AMF rights over the stream. - Have seen an example but can't remember when or where.

Can anyone help?

[Pat Sole]

My advice (via Advisor to the Survey-General several years ago) when I requested placing a (flowing) stream bed area back into a title from which I had previously removed it (via a boundary adjustment) was that it could not be done. In other words, once a stream bed is removed from a title it can never be done away with (unless it dries up).

I suspect this is correct (and follows the general principle of not issuing title to land covered by water?) and reflects the AMF rule that ownership is only a presumptive right.

I also know this is at odds with the DLR policy in Taranaki (circa 2000) and probably what is documented in the Cadastral Survey Guidelines of around that time.