Q&A

Canada’s municipalities have strict limitations on what you can build on your property. Zoning by-laws are intended to regulate land usage for the benefit of the entire community. Every piece of land in the Greater Toronto Area is subject to zoning regulations that reflect how the property fits into the municipality's official plan.

These regulations specify, among other things, the distance that buildings are located from the property boundaries (setbacks), building height, maximum floor space, lot coverage, required parking and an array of other requirements enforceable by law.

I'm assuming you're in Toronto or the Greater Toronto area, however if not the suggestions below should still help.

With regards to your neighbour's ability to rebuild a structure in the current building location which encroaches on your property: you will need to consult a lawyer who specializes in boundary disputes and land-related matters.

Bob Aaron and Brian Madigan are two highly reputable lawyers in this field. The question is whether or not the grandfathered encroachment would survive a rebuild or whether the City would look to that opportunity ...

The Alberta Land Surveyors Association is your best bet for an answer on this. They can be reached at http://www.alsa.ab.ca/.

In Ontario the builder would not be permitted to traverse or use your property unless there was a registered easement on title that permitted that use.

New developments will often have time-limited easements across homeowner's lands that permit the builder to traverse so that they can move their equipment, materials and people in the most efficient manner to and from the sites they are working on.

Great question and one that gets neighbours into hot water quite often.

Without your neighbour's consent you can build a fence up to the property line on your side. However when we say "fence" we mean posts and cement footing as well. Often people build the fence portion on the property line not realizing that the fence posts or the footings are encroaching several inches onto the neighbour's property.

A litigious neighbour could take you to task (lawyers) on the fact that that while your fence is on the property line, your posts and/or footings encroach onto their property

A: A boundary is an invisible line that marks the end of one property and the beginning of the next. Only a survey plan prepared by a licensed land surveyor can show you exactly where your property boundaries are located.

The surveyor ascertains the property boundaries using evidence of prior surveys, older authoritative plans and the legal descriptions of pertinent parcels of land, in conjunction with on-site measuring to formulate an opinion of the location of the boundaries.

Here's the thing. You cannot rely upon any single piece of boundary evidence to make a determination on where a boundary is. Surveyors, when producing their opinion on a property's boundary, craw upon dozens of different sources to create that opinion.

These sources include current and historical surveys of the property in question and of the neighbouring properties, official plans of subdivision, the location of survey bars on neighbouring properties and, of course, those on the subject property.

We've written a fairly extensive blog on the subjects of easements that you may be interested in here: https://www.protectyourboundaries.ca/blog/how-easements-affect-private-property-rights

Utility easements in residential neighbourhoods are a complex and somewhat messy topic. Technically there should be an easement registered on title for any and every utility asset that traverses you land. The exception to this is assets (pipes, lines, cables, wires) that feed your house directly.

You are certainly correct in making the survey your first priority. Make sure you select a surveyor who is local and knows the area well.

Also, you may want to pay a little extra and have the boundary between you and your neighbour staked out to give you physical evidence (on the ground) of where the property line is. With this in hand hopefully your neighbour will see the error of their ways and remove the encroachments.

Thanks for the question.

If the shed is on an easement that favours Bell, then technically Bell has the right to ask the owner of the shed to remove it. Depending on how badly the shed obstructs (or doesn't obstruct) their access they may choose to do nothing or they may ask to have it removed. It is up to the party to whom the easement is in favour to challenge any encroachment.