What is an AMF claim?
This isn’t just someone’s initials. AMF stands for ‘ad medium filum aquae’ which is basically Latin for ‘to the middle line of the water’ (check your old school notes). Where a river abuts a property and the connection is not interrupted by a road or other form of public land, the adjoining landowner may own the riverbed to the centre of the river.
Why you may need an AMF claim?
These can be done as part of a subdivision, or as a standalone land claim. Sometimes the land area can be the difference between being able to subdivide and not. Such land can offer valuable grazing or land-use rights, and in the South Island, particularly these riverbeds can be quite wide areas of land. Whether these rights exist can only be ascertained on a case by case basis and requires the investigation by a clever Crown Investigating Agent (of which there are very few around).
How we help
We can take care of all these tricky things as part of any subdivision or individual river claims you may wish to undertake. Call us now if you think you can claim the riverbed you have been grazing for the last 50 years. At $30,000/ha it could add quite a bit of value to your farm if it was in your title.