The PYB Blog

Today’s savvy homesellers understand the value of showing their home in its best light. “Staging” a home by eliminating clutter and adding tasteful artwork, neutral paint colours and optimal furniture arrangements has become routine in the hopes of attracting multiple offers and higher bids.

There is less awareness about the importance of including a property survey plan in the home information package. While the Agreement of Purchase and Sale (APS) contains a standard condition that allows the purchaser to request that the seller supply a survey plan if they have one in their possession, there is much confusion regarding this clause and what precisely the vendor will produce.

The first step to protecting your boundaries is to become informed about your rights as a private property owner. You have the right to exclusive use of your property, the right to legal protection against others intruding on your property, and the right to sell, transfer, exchange and mortgage property.

Land surveying – the art and science of mapping and measuring land, and calculating the precise locations and boundaries of divided plots of land – makes our system of private property ownership possible. Protect Your Boundaries was created to provide homeowners with the tools and information they need to safeguard their property assets. To that end, this blog post will provide answers to the top five boundary questions.

It is human nature to test limits, and the realm of property boundaries is no different. Neighbours sometimes encroach on a boundary accidentally, and other times quite willfully. It can involve moving a fence a few feet inside your property line, improperly locating a new backyard shed or pool, or repaving and widening a driveway onto your property and hoping you will not notice or object.

In fact, people who have been occupying a portion of your land for several years in this manner may come to regard it as legally

belonging to them – a situation termed “squatter’s rights” in popular culture.

Where are my property boundaries?

Where does the fence go?

What can I do about a property boundary dispute with my neighbour?

If you have property boundary questions or concerns – or simply want to learn more about why a land survey plan is such an important homeowner document – be sure to check out the Protect Your Boundaries (PYB) booth (#909) at the Toronto Fall Home Show Sept. 18-21.

Approximately 49 per cent of residential properties in the Greater Toronto Area have property boundary discrepancies that could lead to disputes between neighbours, a study by PYB shows.

A random sample of 415 land survey plans from the City of Toronto and the regional municipalities of Durham, Halton, Peel and York revealed that 205, or 49 per cent, of the properties have a misplaced fence or other encroaching structure or occupation issue with the potential to create conflict between neighbours.

In a previous PYB blog post (Aug. 25), we focused on the history and importance of land surveying as a profession, and noted some prominent surveyors who made their mark in the history books: Sir George Everest, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln among them.

This post takes a closer look at the skills and expertise of today’s professional land surveyor, who provides invaluable insights and expertise when you are buying or selling a home, disputing a boundary issue with a neighbour, or planning to develop your land (e.g., by building an addition, fence, shed, etc.)

Every home with a boundary problem was once a brand-new home. If the boundaries are not clearly understood from the time the first owner moves in, inaccuracies in the placement of fences, sheds, walkways, gardens and so on can create the potential for an unfortunate property boundary dispute in years to come.

That’s why it’s imperative for homeowners in new subdivisions to understand exactly where their boundaries are – and that’s often not easy in a construction zone with mud everywhere and no fences to define each parcel of land.

Surveying is both the science of accurate land measurement and the art of expertly interpreting physical evidence and historical property records to arrive at a professional opinion regarding the boundaries of a parcel of land.

Early survey maps are important historical documents – and often works of art in their own right.

A new year is here and we have a resolution idea for all homeowners who don’t have a property survey plan – make this the year you get one!

A land survey plan is an essential homeowner document: it provides vital data about your property on one unique, specialized map – information that you need for successful real estate transactions and home improvement projects, and to ensure that you and your neighbours respect each others’ property rights.

In the early 1990s, title insurance was introduced to the Canadian real estate market, offering lenders, lawyers and homebuyers insurance against title defects, off-title building code infractions, mortgage and title fraud, as well as many property boundary defects that would otherwise have been revealed in an up-to-date land survey plan.

In doing so, title insurance made it possible for real estate transactions to close faster but with far less due diligence – it is no longer routine for the survey plan to be thoroughly examined prior to purchase to ascertain the property’s physical features – buildings, garages, sheds, fences, walls, decks, etc. – relative to the property’s boundary.