Does a waterfront lot's property line move with the shore in BC?

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Usually yes: a lot bounded by water runs to the natural boundary, the visible high water mark, so it gains land the water slowly builds up and loses land the water slowly wears away; fill, flooding or digging don't move it. The natural boundary moves as the water slowly builds up or wears away the shore, and the lot's line moves with it, so an old plan may no longer show where the lot ends. Look up the address or PID on PlaceDossier to see the record for that lot. The natural boundary: The Land Act defines it as the visible high water mark of a lake, river, stream or other body of water, where the water's presence and action, usual in all ordinary years, mark the soil of the bed with a character distinct from the banks, in vegetation and in the soil itself (Land Act s. 1). It is found on the ground, not in a table of levels. The shore is the Crown's: Unless the Crown grant expressly says otherwise, no part of the bed or shore below the natural boundary passed to the owner of land granted along the water, whatever the title or plan shows (Land Act s. 55 (2), (4)); a few grants and plans from before March 27, 1961 that took in a bed are kept (s. 56). See docks and moorage for what may be built on the foreshore. Accretion and erosion: As the Surveyor General states the common law, a lot bounded by a natural boundary stays bounded by it as land lawfully accretes or erodes: land the water slowly and imperceptibly builds up becomes the owner's, and land it slowly wears away becomes the Crown's bed or foreshore (Circular Letter No. 470). The Surveyor General's view is that accreted land is already within the title before any plan shows it, which the Court of Appeal accepted in 0640453 B.C. Ltd. v. Tristar Communities Ltd., 2018 BCCA 460 (Surveyor General's article). Fill, flooding and digging: Where a lake has been raised artificially, or fill placed or material dug out, the natural boundary generally stays where it was just before: placing fill doesn't add land to a lot (Circular Letter No. 470). Fill on the foreshore is on Crown land and needs the Province's say-so (our reading; see docks and moorage). Showing it on a plan: A new survey plan of a waterfront lot can show accreted land, or correct a natural boundary an old plan drew wrongly, with the Surveyor General's certificate (Land Title Act ss. 94 to 96); a plan of a lot that has eroded shows the lost land returned to the Crown (Circular Letter No. 470). Nothing changes on the title until such a plan is deposited, though the ownership has already moved (our reading of the Surveyor General's article). Setbacks and flood levels: Streamside and floodplain setbacks, and a flood construction level given as a height above the water, are measured from the natural boundary or the high water mark, so a moving shore moves them too (see streamside setbacks and flood construction levels). A lot created by subdivision along Crown water needs public access to it by 20 m roads every 200 m, or 400 m where all the new lots are rural and over 0.5 ha (Land Title Act s. 75 (1) (c)). The lot's size: A report measures the lot on ParcelMap BC's outline, drawn from the plan the title rests on; on the water, today's natural boundary can sit well inside or outside it, the older the plan the more likely (Circular Letter No. 470). What it means for a buyer: On a river, an exposed shore or a lake whose level is controlled, ask a BC Land Surveyor where the natural boundary is now, not only what the plan shows: it decides how much land you buy, where a house, septic field or dock may go, and whether a seawall or fill was placed on Crown land.

Does a waterfront lot's property line move with the shore in BC?

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