18-Geom-B5 Survey Law · May 2014
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams — May 2014 — 04-Geom-B5 Survey Law. Three hours; CLOSED BOOK, NO CALCULATOR. Twelve questions constitute a complete paper (the first twelve as they appear are marked); most answers require sentence-and-paragraph format. All twelve questions are solved in full below. Content is framed in the Canadian common-law and Ontario land-registration context named by the source.
Reference texts: Survey Law in Canada (Canadian Council of Land Surveyors / Carswell, 1989); Brown, Robillard & Wilson, Brown's Boundary Control and Legal Principles (7th ed., Wiley, 2017); Ontario Land Surveyor educational materials and the Association of Ontario Land Surveyors (AOLS) Survey Review; the Land Titles Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. L.5, the Registry Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. R.20, the Surveys Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S.30, and the Condominium Act, 1998, S.O. 1998, c. 19; Re Ellenborough Park, [1956] Ch. 131 (C.A.).
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
To say a water boundary is ambulatory is to say that it is not a fixed line but one that moves with the water's edge over time. Where a parcel is bounded by a natural water feature, the legal boundary is the water margin itself (for a river, the bank or the line of medium filum for non-navigable streams; for the sea or a Great Lake, the high-water mark), and as that margin shifts, so does the boundary — provided the shift is gradual and imperceptible.
The surveyor applies the concept through three doctrines that turn on the manner of change:
Accretion (and reliction). Where soil is added to the bank gradually and imperceptibly by the action of the water — or where water permanently recedes (reliction) — the new land accrues to the riparian owner and the boundary moves to follow the new margin. The owner gains land.
Erosion (diluvion). Where the bank is worn away gradually and imperceptibly, the boundary retreats with it and the owner loses land. The ambulatory principle cuts both ways: the same rule that grants accretion imposes the risk of erosion.
Avulsion. Where the change is sudden and perceptible — a river abruptly cutting a new channel in a flood, for instance — the boundary does not move. It remains fixed at the former location of the water, which the surveyor must then re-establish from earlier evidence even though the water is no longer there.
Effect on the property. Because the boundary is ambulatory, the area of a water-bounded parcel is inherently uncertain and changes with time; descriptions typically read "to the water's edge… more or less." The riparian owner accepts the risk of erosion in exchange for the benefit of accretion, and enjoys riparian rights (access to and from the water, and the natural flow). The surveyor must decide, from the evidence, whether a given change was gradual (boundary moves) or avulsive (boundary fixed), and whether the water is navigable — for navigable waters the Crown owns the bed to the high-water mark, so the private parcel stops at that ambulatory line.
