# Property Line Disputes



## bigmoneytalks (Oct 3, 2014)

Hi

I'm dealing with a situation over my parents place about their nasty neighbour. My parents are in their 70's and cannot put up with the B.S they have been dealing with their neighbour so they asked me to help them out.

My parents have lived in their home for over 20+ years. Since the beginning, they had a gate at the front of their house closing off the entrance to their backyard. This is typical for many Toronto homes. Anyways, the nieghbour who moved in about 4 years ago is now causing problems claiming that the gate is on his property (the gate does latch on to the side of the house) and wants it removed immediately or he will take legal action. My parents explained to him that they had this gate for years and when he moved in he never raised any concerns so why now? His response was that it is causing noise in his house when the gate shuts. Well, my parents offered to replace the door with a wooden gate at their own expense but he refuses because he says its "encroachment" and he has every right to the shared space (Which according to their property papers, he has only a foot where as my parents occupied the rest of the space which is about 4 Feet wide). This once total quiet neighbour who never had a problem over the 4 years he's lived there now has a problem? 

Anyway, my question here is, has anyone dealt with a property dispute? If so, how did you handle it? My parents are on a fixed income so going to court is something they want to avoid. They want to settle this in a civil manner but the neighbour is threatening my parents to take them to court for damages. I was thinking of hiring a mediator because this neighbour doesn't seem to want to work with us.


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

If I understand your description, there is about 5ft between the houses, of which 4ft is your parent's property, and 1 ft. is the neighbour's. If your parent's gate is connecting to his house, and in fact latching onto it, it is in fact encroaching 1ft. on his property, and your parents have no right to keep it there without his permission. He is not giving them B.S., he is exerting his legal ownership rights. Aside from the noise, your parents have effectively fenced in a 1 ft. wide strip of his property for their personal use. Replacing it with a wooden gate doesn't solve either of these problems.

The fact that they had the gate for 20+ years is immaterial. As for the delay in the neighbour's complaint, it may have been bugging him for a long time, and he only recently discovered that the gate is actually encroaching on his property, so now he can do something about it. 

They shouldn't go to court, because if the facts are as you state them, they will lose. It sounds like you are agreed on where the lot line is - if not, then talk to the neighbour to see who has the most recent survey plan. Your parents should tell him they are willing to change the gate so that it is entirely on their property. But as it protects the privacy of both properties, would he consider allowing the installation of a 1ft. wide piece of fencing on his side of the property line, but not attached to his building wall, to close the gap? (Since this has gotten to the name-calling stage he may not be receptive.)

This 1ft. space to lot line would be unusual today, because it makes it difficult for the neighbour to do any maintenance on the side of his house without accessing your parent's property. But it would not be uncommon in older parts of cities like Toronto. It might be worth searching the titles of both properties to see if there is any kind of an easement or other discussion about this space.

It's also possible the gate will have to go at the back of the house, not the front.


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## Mortgage u/w (Feb 6, 2014)

I have to agree with OhGreatGuru. Your parents are in fact at default. Avoid a lenghty dispute and remove the gate from his property if you are in fact taking up 1ft of his space.

If you want to piss him off while keeping it legal, put up a fence in between the two houses leaving him his 1ft space. Maybe he will regret his decision of having the gate removed.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

You could ask him what he plans to do if he needs to paint or repair the side of his house. If he intends to trespass on your property to do work, does he really want to make you mad?

Have the property surveyed. If his house overlaps on your parents' lot, make him tear it down. Otherwise put a post in on your side of the line, install a narrow gate and tell him to go to hell.

Or, build a fence on your side of the line and have him arrested for trespassing if he crosses it.


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## TK.61 (Mar 27, 2012)

Wouldn't it be as simple as hiring the city to come out and survey the property and stake out the actual property lines? When my mom and her neighbour were replacing the fence between the two yards a few years ago it was as simple as that I believe. 

It sounds like you are acknowledging that the gate is on his property, so Im not sure what you want us to tell you. A mediator is going to tell you what you already know as well. Remove the gate and it looks like its time to build a new fence or something. 

Ps. I cant quite picture what this scenario looks like (gate attached to neighbours house), do you have any photos?


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

as it happens my century house has a narrow sideyard with a History. The land 100% belongs to my house but my sideyard is the only one in the street, all the other houses are row houses with no street exit except via a front basement level door. There's no rear access lane. 

this means that building contractors, tree-cutters, you name it, all want to use my side yard to access the back yards for several houses around.

my present neighbours are lovely people & i put up with quite a lot because 1) good neighbourly relations are very important to me & 2) it does genuinely help them to be able to carry things back & forth through my side yard.

in your case, i'm not sure what your description means. Is this a narrow sideyard leading from the street to the backyard? would a land surveyor's map show that your neighbour does own one foot of this narrow passageway, while your parents' deed survey shows that they own the remaining 4 feet?

very specifically, is it possible that there is some confusion over interpreting the cadastral limits of the original lot sectioning? i won't take the space now to go on about this, but it can happen, especially if your parents' property is located in an older part of the city. Basically some problems arose in older city lot sectioning because the original real estate agents who brokered the land - on which the houses were originally built - didn't correctly respect the cadastral limits as drawn up by the original land surveyors.

in most cases, the deed to the house will specify that the land property includes a small strip of an adjoining cadastre (sorry i don't know the word in english.)

in other words, it might be that your parents do own the entire sideyard after all, in which case the neighbours would have no claims.

can you find your parents' deed to their house? there should be a land surveyor's map attached. There should be a full description of the land lot or lots or portions of lots that belong to your parents' house in the deed.

my reason for raising this issue is that i feel it's necessary to determine if 1) this is a sideyard issue, & 2) does your neighbour actually have any right to any portion of that sideyard?

the sideyard to my house has a similar problem, btw. In our case, years before my time, an older sibling had to hire a land surveyor & a lawyer to repel a pushy neighbour who built a new backyard fence several feet into our property. Fortunately by the time i arrived, mister & missus Pushy Fence were in the process of divorcing & departing. We got the fence pushed back.

les Pushy Fence were replaced by the lovely family who live there today. The wooden picket fence is now quite dilapidated, it didn't like being dug up & moved, so it has sulked & drooped ever since. We regularly joke about it.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

OhGreatGuru said:


> ... This 1ft. space to lot line would be unusual today, because it makes it difficult for the neighbour to do any maintenance on the side of his house without accessing your parent's property. But it would not be uncommon in older parts of cities like Toronto. It might be worth searching the titles of both properties to see if there is any kind of an easement or other discussion about this space.


this is exactly what i mean. Original land surveyors' lot lines were not exactly followed when the original builders built their houses, especially these small houses with narrow siideyards in older sections of eastern canadian cities.

my land surveyor's map (both the century version & the recent version) show a cadastral line one foot from the neighbour's wall, in the sideyard, & 4.5 feet from my wall, in the sideyard. To add to the comedy, these are old french feet, these are not english feet (please, no jokes.)

a coarse rough glance at the maps might cause one to believe that this cadastral line is the property line. But no, the deeds to both houses establish, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my house includes the full cadastre to the west plus one foot of the next cadastre to the east. Whereas the neighbour's deed shows that their cadastre commences on the western side with one foot shaved off.

my sib had to engage a lawyer to explain all this to mister & missus Pushy Fence but in the end it was cheaper than going through a great deal of angoisse & misery.

gates in these narrow sideyards are often attached to a neighbour's wall, so if parents' Neighbour is unhappy about said gate then this might be a separate sub-issue to be dealt with. But i think the first order of business is to establish who, really, does own the side yard. I am betting that it would be unusual for the original lawyers/notaries to have divided any side yard, in earlier years.

it's necessary to read the deeds & their lot descriptions very carefully. If the parents have lost their copies, all deeds should be on record at city hall.


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## donald (Apr 18, 2011)

You know you could always just re adjust the latch to your parents side and remove the hardware from his side(change the swing the other way)
and with that said you can get a spring loaded latch spring that has tension when shutting said get(same latches like you see in kitchen cabinets that quietly self close(slow release)prob 150 buck soltution


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

re a neighbour's right to work on his exterior wall when his exterior wall is, in fact, the property line. When he owns no land to stand upon to carry out his work. As is in my case with my neighbours across the sideyard.

of course they have the legal right to maintain the exterior of their house. Of course cooperation from myself is necessary. They work with their workers, ladders, scaffoldings, bags of cement, bricks, lumber, tools, other construction materials, roofing materials, construction debris, etc directly upon my land. In my sideyard.

this has happened several times. My poor sideyard garden & my front lawn where the workers have tromped & hauled their materials back & forth have died several times & have had to be replanted over & over & over again. I've learned to grow only extraordinarily tough plants in the sideyard.

i put up with all this like an angel. My neighbours are lovely. They don't really *do* anything for me in return, but then i don't expect anything either. It's all because of the way these victorian houses were constructed. I'm just glad to have nice civilized neighbours. The children are darling, the adults are excellent parents. I imagine that if ever i had to count on them for something, they would come through for me.

isn't this the way neighbours are supposed to be?


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

Regardless of what conclusions may be made about who owns the 1ft. strip, OP's parents have no right to attach the fence or gate to the neighbour's house without his permission. Unless there is something on title prescribing a jointly-owned fence/gate. Even then I think it would be highly unlikely to prescribe that it can be attached to the structure at either end.

My advice: remove the gate for now and research who has what rights to this space. Tell the neighbour they may want to revisit fence/gate issue after they have looked into the title documents - and ask neighbour if he has anything in his papers that would shed light on the matter. Furthermore I would tell the neighbour he may remove the latch himself - but your parents will not accept responsibility for making any repairs to the wall as it was an existing condition when he bought from the previous owner.


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> ...isn't this the way neighbours are supposed to be?


I agree, but OP made it sound as though his parents can't see the neighbour's point of view at all.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

TK.61 said:


> Wouldn't it be as simple as hiring the city to come out and survey the property and stake out the actual property lines? When my mom and her neighbour were replacing the fence between the two yards a few years ago it was as simple as that I believe.


City won't do that, it has to be an *registered Ontario Land surveyor*, who will resurvey the parents lot and establish a lot line..unless the city inspectors comes with metal detector to find where the ORIGINAL land survey iron stakes are located...that is not changing the original survey but confirming it.

New Survey will cost a "few hundred.' but the survey will have new markers placed on the property lines, to
replace or confirm the survey stakes that may no longer be there ..or dug up accidently years ago.

Or, you can hire somebody with a metal detector to find the original survey stakes, which are square
iron spikes about 12 to 18 inches in length on each corner of the survey lines.

The 1 foot rule is pretty much standard I believe, I ran into this problem with an inground pool a few years ago on a previous property. My real estate lawyer didn't want to go ahead and register the sale until there was a measurement from the pool house to the property line, because the pool was installed after the original property survey, and the pool shed was right up against the property line fence, even though the pool wasn't. 

Simple enough. Pool shed had to be moved 1 foot away from the property line shown on the survey. 



> In Ontario, there are two systems the *Land Titles system* and the *Registry
> system*. Under the newer Land Titles system, if a fence is incorrectly placed
> over your property line by your neighbour, *you are legally entitled to have
> the neighbour remove the fence. *
> ...


http://ontariorealestatesource.com/articles/goodfence.pdf


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

When we had dispute with our neighbour on property lines, we did exactly as carver said. We found the metal marker. We just started digging because the area it had to be in was ralatively small.


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

> *carverman*: City won't do that, it has to be an *registered Ontario Land surveyor*, who will resurvey the parents lot and establish a lot line..unless the city inspectors comes with metal detector to find where the ORIGINAL land survey iron stakes are located...that is not changing the original survey but confirming it.
> 
> New Survey will cost a "few hundred.' but the survey will have new markers placed on the property lines, to
> replace or confirm the survey stakes that may no longer be there ..or dug up accidently years ago.
> ...


... agree that the city won't come to mark your land for you (don't even bother calling them). Best to hire a land surveyor (runs about $1K to $1.5K depending on the size of firm you're hiring) and have your property/lot/land surveyed to "clearly and officially mark" yours and possibly your neighbour's property boundary so as to take the right course of action next. Much cheaper than hiring a lawyer and ends up going to court if the dispute turns ugly.


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

I worked as a legal land survey field tech all through high school for 4 summers. I don't have detailed knowledge of the legal workings behind property disputes, but I could suggest the following...

If the house is old, and there is no updated survey other than with the original deed and drawing, then I would recommend that you DO NOT go digging around yourself for the survey bars. In the absence of a detailed, legible survey done in modern times, there is a high likelihood that the location of the original iron bars will prevail in a dispute. But it is crucial that these bars be found and measured by qualified land surveyors. If you go rooting around, then SHTF and the surveyors are brought in, your neighbor may rightly claim that you were messing around with the property bars and you may have purposely or inadvertently moved them to your advantage.


If you have a relatively new survey of the boundary (when the neighbor bought their house, or your parents theirs) then go ahead and find the survey bars (3/4" square or round iron bar, or a 1" square iron bar (though most likely 3/4" square)) to verify what's going on.

If the survey is new, there may be "offset measurements" displayed in the drawing that will be measurements perpendicular to the boundary, from the 4 corners of the house foundations (2 on yours 2 on theirs) that you can use to recreate the property line in the absence of iron bars.

Humble pie's advice is good too. With older houses there could be various right of ways, easements, or historical agreements that would take priority.

To take my surveyor cap off though... It sounds like the neighbour's issue is the gate being noisy? Do you need the gate in the first place to contain a pool or something? If not why not just take it down... or install one that is quiet and put the post on the property line and call it a day. Let him worry about fencing off the last foot if he wants to.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Beaver101 said:


> ... agree that the city won't come to mark your land for you (don't even bother calling them). Best to hire a land surveyor (runs about $1K to $1.5K depending on the size of firm you're hiring) and have your property/lot/land surveyed to "clearly and officially mark" yours and possibly your neighbour's property boundary so as to take the right course of action next. Much cheaper than hiring a lawyer and ends up going to court if the dispute turns ugly.


If they have access to the original survey that should have been included with their deed, there should be a copy of the original survey. On the survey map, on newer surveys it will indicate "IB" for iron bar at the 4 corners of the property.
As well positioning co-ordinates will be provided by the original surveyor as well as measurements in feet and inches (or meters in recent surveys).

On my current property deed (done in 1970) which has the legal description and survey map dimensions of the lot, it also states the grid co-ordinates (aka GPS co-ordinates now) for each marker. However to establish where the original survey markers are is a bit involved because my lot is irregular and there is no IB shown on the 4 corners.
The party wall between me and my neighbour delineates the other side longitudinally. 
Survey markers are usually placed on the corners of the property using absolute grid co-ordinates. 

To make it even more confusing There is also a legal description of my lot: that accompanies the survey map.


> Commencing at the most Westerly angle of the said lot;
> Thence Northeasterly and following the Northeasterly angle of the said lot, a distance of 11.69 feet;.....the said course being on the arc of the circular curve to the right, having a radius of 200 feet, an arc distance of 28.16 feet,
> having an equivalent chord distance of 28.12 feet, and a chord bearing North 44 degrees; 03 minutes, 30 seconds East to a point, the said point being in a Northwesterly production of the center line of the division wall of the double residence presently erected on the said lot.





> Then Southerly in a straight line to and along the center line of division wall, along the southerly production thereof, the said course being parallel to the easterly limit of the said lot. a distance of 105.74 feet to a point in a Southeasterly or rear limit of the said Lot, Thence southwesterly and following the said southeasterly limit, a distance of 38.71 feet to the most southerly angle of the said lot, thence Northerly and following the westerly limit of the said Lot 100 feet to the point of commencement.



ie: North 32degrees; 13 minutes; 30 secs W delineates my property line on one longitudinal side. The stake on one corner will be at grid location N40 degrees; 01 minute, 30 seconds East.
Now you can't just use an ordinary compass here, so they use a more accurate instrument called a theodolite to set the degrees, minutes, secs and compass directions. I guess that is why they charge the big bucks. 

Confused..so am I. :biggrin:
I could probably measure out the approximate location of the original survey markers using linear measurements then maybe
with a metal detector and dig down to look for them..but it's not easy.


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

^


> *carverman:* To make it even more confusing There is also a legal description of the lot: that accompanies the survey map.
> 
> Commencing at the most Westerly angle of the said lot;
> Thence Northeasterly and following the Northeasterly angle of the said lot, a distance of 11.69 feet;.....the said course being
> ...


 ... that's what I mean ...huh??? Unless you're a landsurveyor or an architect, the average layperson ain't going to be able to understand what all these means.... and I don't even think your hired surveyor have the same (close by not exact) longitudinal/latitudal measurements as the surveyor hired by your neigbour's. Just how precise are these measurements?


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

the OP has disappeared so perhaps he only wanted to rant?

actually i was suggesting that, in an older neighbourhood or region, the original surveyed lot lines are often not the same as the actual house property lot lines which the first developers used, decades later, when they initially built out the district.

this is true in many older sections of cities in quebec, at least.

if this issue is present in the OP's parents' situation, it could very well be that the parents own 100% of the sideyard while the neighbours have no rights whatsoever, is all i wanted to mention.

the OP would have to read his parents' deed carefully, possibly research historical documents at city hall.

to end on a lighter note. Some friends have a hobby farm in the ottawa valley. Across the road & also close by along the road live three generations of Racines, a multi-generational dairy-farming family that has been implanted on its 1,200 acres since the late 1700s.

a kilometre down the road is a pretty green-painted farmhouse. When i asked Who lives over there, everybody frowned. Evidently a massive boundary dispute was underway. The tension had been running so high that the district farmers' fence committee had been called upon to mediate.

farmer Green had been keeping his bull untethered in the field that was nearest to farmer Racine's land. The Green bull had managed to sire a number of calves on Racine cows, through the fence.

farmer Racine was said to be beyond livid, since he was paying for artificial insemination & he wanted to keep his herd bloodlines straight.

as for the cows, nobody knows what they were thinking of when they lumbered over to play Jian Ghomeshi with the fence.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

Beaver101 said:


> ^ ... that's what I mean ...huh??? Unless you're a landsurveyor or an architect, the average layperson ain't going to be able to understand what all these means.... and I don't even think your hired surveyor have the same (close by not exact) longitudinal/latitudal measurements as the surveyor hired by your neigbour's. Just how precise are these measurements?


Very precise I would think, as even a couple of seconds in the measurement can make significant difference in a boundary dispute.
Each degree is divided into minutes (1/60th of a degree) , and each minute is divided into seconds (1/60th
of a minute). 

So if you are talking x degrees + fractions of a degree in minutes (60) + fractions of that minute in seconds (60)..it's well within the accuracy levels of most surveyors and their surveying instruments I would think..even if two different survey companies are called to do adjoining properties...or "cojoined" as in a semi detached with a brick firewall between me and my neighbour. The new ones are even digitized.

if I ever need to do a new survey on before selling, the land parcel is registered in the land registry as 'instrument
<number>., so historically that can be used as the original survey, and the new survey registered over the original
survey as an updated survey..I believe, but perhaps someone can elaborate on this.


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## dotnet_nerd (Jul 1, 2009)

Don't forget about Title Insurance. This is a must when buying and most newer transactions will include this.

If there is a property line dispute and it ends up costing you (relocating fences, outbuildings etc). your title insurance will cover the costs.

We availed ourselves of this when we bought our house. A question arose about our lot line and the T.I. covered the cost for an official survey. (Turns out we were correct and the dispute was resolved by the survey)


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## lonewolf (Jun 12, 2012)

Bigmoneytalks

If your parents are happy with where the property lines are now if I were them I would put the gate on their own property. Your parents could open up an expensive can of worms. Their neighbour could get a new land survey done the survey might show your parents own less land then they thought. Your parents survey could differ from your neighbours survey which could end up a costly court battle & the value of their property could go down if the new line effected the new property. this one.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

wolf if the parents do not own the sideyard at all, then the paper value of their home has already gone down.

you know as well as i do that any buyers looking to buy the property are going to get the truth figured out. At that point the value/price in real dollars will adjust to reality.

pretending things are OK & ostriching is not a good approach here, especially since the neighbours' nose seems to be already out of joint.

if this were my situation, i'd be hopeful. In older housing tracts in old eastern cities, the first builders did not normally set up a cuckoo situation such as a one-foot strip of a sideyard belonging to somebody else. 

the probability is greater than 50% that the entire sideyard belongs to the parents imho. All the more reason for the OP to start studying his parents' deed. 

here in quebec, the lot specifications of the property deed when the house was first built will usually override any older surveyor's map.

but the old/original surveyor lines do subsist. When these are different from the later builders' lot lines, these often cause much confusion around here. I'm talking truly *old* surveys, from the 18th to 20th centuries. Long before any metal corner bars, etc.


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## lonewolf (Jun 12, 2012)

Humble a friend of mine had bought a house survey from 1978 said she owned 13 feet from side of house to property line. The neighbour wanted to put up a fence & recently got a new survey now the new survey the neighbour gets has survey pins in the middle of her driveway leaving her no driveway based on the neighbours survey. Now the neighbour has plans to build a ne fence there destroying her driveway. It was always understood the retaining wall holding up her driveway was on the line. Now she most likely have to spend money to get a survey done & if the neighbour builds a fence devaluing the property because of no driveway court costs could cost her a few thousand dollars. Even if the neighbour does not put up a fence when she goes to sell house new buyers are going to wonder why those property pins are in driveway reducing price of her home when she goes to sell. These things can get out of hand


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

lonewolf said:


> Humble a friend of mine had bought a house survey from 1978 said *she owned 13 feet from side of house to property line.*
> The neighbour wanted to put up a fence & recently got a new survey. Now the new survey, the neighbour has survey pins in the middle of her driveway leaving her no driveway based on the neighbours survey.


Whoa! Did she get a registered survey plan with the deed of her home? On the original survey, these are registered as survey instruments and part and parcel of the land the house was built on. How would a real estate lawyer close the deal without a survey plan?..unless it was handed down from a family member.

She can go to the land registry office located in her county, and get the REGISTERED original plan of survey,
which will have a referenced survey number. 
It will also have the surveyor's certificate either printed or embossed on the plan with the surveyor's certification statement.

IE "This is to certify that the survey represented by this plan is CORRECT, and that there are no
buildings or ENCROACHMENTS on, or relating to the above property other than as shown."
Dated at <city or county> . Signed by the land surveyor which has to be a registered land surveyor in
the province.
This will have a survey instrument number and specify the Lot number



> Now the neighbour has plans to build a fence there destroying her driveway. It was always understood the* retaining wall holding up her driveway was on the line*. Now she most likely have to spend money to get a survey done & if the neighbour builds a fence devaluing the property,
> because of no driveway, court costs could cost her a few thousand dollars.
> 
> Even if the neighbour does not put up a fence, when she goes to sell house new buyers are going to wonder why those property pins are in driveway, reducing price of her home when she goes to sell. These things can get out of hand



Yes, they certainly can. If she has no original survey plan with her deed.. ( how does one buy property without a survey plan to define boundaries of the property?)...she will have no choice but to get another up to date survey to confirm whether the neighbours survey is correct with the survey pins in the right place. 

If someone before her, put up the retaining wall, without consulting a survey plan encroaching on the neighbour's property, she will have to move the location of the retaining wall to sell, and more than likely.... without a new survey, she will have trouble selling.

These kinds of disputes would have to be mentioned on the real estate listing...and if not corrected before selling...any buyers will walk away from it. Even if a successful buyer assumes an old plan of survey to avoid
additional closing costs, they don't want to get involved with legal disputes with neighbours, upon purchase.


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## lonewolf (Jun 12, 2012)

Caverman she does have a copy of the original survey by a licenced surveyer showing it was her land from the real estate agent. 

She also signed a piece of paper when buying the property with house that stated if the survey was wrong it would not be the real estate agents problem & another survey to make certain should be taken. ( maybe not verbatim but something along those lines) She never did the secound survey for years everyone thought she owned the property. now it could get expensive & were trying to figure out best aproach


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

lonewolf said:


> Caverman she does have a copy of the original survey by a licenced surveyer showing it was her land from the real estate agent.
> 
> She also signed a piece of paper when buying the property with house that stated if the survey was wrong it would not be the real estate agents problem & another survey to make certain should be taken



oh dear, instinctively i don't like the sound of this. The real estate agent gave her the "survey" but included a hold-harmless clause if it had mistakes, plus an instruction that she should get another professional survey done?

oh, dear.

she can do a lot before hiring expensive professionals, though. She can find older surveys & deed copies at city hall. 

me i'd look first for documents bracketing the date when the present driveway was built. That's when some accommodation with the neighbour of the era may have been worked out. Where was the property line before the driveway? was there a much narrower driveway entirely on her present property? But perhaps the problem was that the grade was crumbling/collapsing, so a decision was made to build a retaining wall? Is the neighbour supposed in any way to pay for the maintenance of the retaining wall?


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

If the neighbor has had a survey just completed then I'm guessing your friend may be hooped. The OLS for the survey would have already pulled your friend's and the surrounding neighbour's deeds/drawings from the registry office and their own archives. The drawings would then be interpreted by experienced professionals and field techs in a non-biased manner, and the boundary determined, measured, and laid out on the ground. 

"your" surveyor is not like "your" lawyer. Just because the neighbour hired them doesn't mean they have interpreted the documents to favour the neighbour. The only hope would be if your friend has documents to the contrary that aren't in the public record that the surveyors wouldn't have had access to during the neighbour's survey.

It's highly improbable that there was negligence or foul play involved with the survey, and getting an independent assessment will be a waste of $1000.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

peterk i agree *if* the neighbour has a legitimate survey prepared by a licensed professional arpenteur.

but we don't know that for sure. And you know how people talk. Specifically, some folks will bluster about surveys they claim they possess, once they are riled up about a boundary issue. I bet less than 1% ever glance at, let alone study, the elaborate property descriptions that are written out in their deeds.

me i still believe that obtaining sound, clear information is not difficult to do & it can be done for fairly cheap at city hall.

once a homeowner understands that there is a dispute & understands what the dispute is all about, he might want or need to engage a surveyor and/or a lawyer to interface with the neighbour.


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