That means a land ownership saga stretching back to the 1860s gold rush has come one small legal step closer to being resolved.
A recent High Court decision obtained by the Otago Daily Times appoints the Public Trust as managers of the two sections after an agreement was reached with Mr Gilbert and his wife Judith.
When contacted yesterday, Mr Gilbert would not detail the agreement but confirmed he was no longer seeking ownership.
The two sections were among 23 abandoned sections, including nine in Cardrona, the Lakes District Council and the Public Trust have been seeking to have managed by the trust.
Several are believed to have now been sold by the trust.
Before reaching the agreement, Mr and Mrs Gilbert opposed the trust being appointed manager of two of the sections.
The two sections have difficult-to-read titles issued in 1877 - one to Ah Kin [or possibly Ah Hin] and the other to Wong You.
Despite the efforts of Queenstown lawyer Jayne Surrey, their descendants have never been traced.
In an affidavit to the High Court, Ms Surrey says Ah Kin's section (1012sq m) was valued in 2008 at $200,000 and in 2010 at $100,000.
The Wong You property (2808sq m) was valued at $385,000 in 2008 and $250,000 in 2010.
Ms Surrey noted in her affidavit that in 1986, hotel proprietors Edmund and Rosemarie Jones sought the title to Ah Hin's section.
Their application was refused and the section remained in the name of Ah Hin and continued to be used mainly to store firewood for the Cardrona Hotel.
Mr Gilbert, who owned the hotel from 1993 to 1999 and, as "sheriff", did much to promote the village, paid rates on the Ah Hin and Wong You sections for many years.
Ms Surrey said Mr Gilbert indicated he had a claim to the titles under "adverse possession" processes.
Now the sections are in the hands of the Public Trust, it must attempt to track down descendants of Ah Hin [or Ah Kin] and Wong You.
It is also searching for two other 19th-century Cardrona section owners, Yeong Wah and Ah Lem.
Ms Surrey found records indicating an Ah Kin was a miner born in China who had lived in New Zealand for 12 years before dying of phthisis (tuberculosis) in Frankton Hospital in 1882, aged 37.
She found no death notice for an Ah Hin.
She advertised for descendants and approached various archives and museums with no result.
And she approached the embassy of the People's Republic of China but drew no response.
She concluded: "Although no descendants of Ah Hin or Ah Kin have been identified, it has also not been possible to prove descendants do not exist."
It was possible Ah Hin and the others had returned to China after the gold rush.
The Queenstown LakesDistrict Council said in a statement it had not purchased any of the properties and added it was probably not appropriate to identify any potential properties it might be interested in buying.
