The PYB Blog

It's actually illegal to remove survey bars in Ontario, however it's difficult to enforce and it happens quite often. The good news is that the location of that corner of your property is documented on the survey plan that your surveyor gave you.

You may want to ask your neighbour to pay for the surveyor to come out again and replace the bar. If they won't and you want that bar there, maybe it's a cost that you'll be willing to incur.

So, your addition is built directly onto your neighbour's wall, meaning that if they took their wall down you'd have an open side to your addition.

While it is not permitted to build onto a neighbour's wall, even if that wall is right on the property line, it's unlikely that you would be forced to remove your addition if, in fact, it's been there for a number of years and was built by a previous owner. A lawyer will help you determine your exact level of risk on that one.

These boxes indicate the presence of survey monuments - 2 or 4 foot long iron survey bars that surveyors drive into the ground to physically mark boundary points. 

The solid black squares indicate an existing iron bar that the surveyor found and is confirming the presence and location of.

A basic residential survey typically takes 5-10 business days to complete. That includes up-front research, field work, plan drafting and final plan checking.

The work will take a month (or more) if it's in some way more complex than a standard residential lot, or, more likely, the surveyor has more than your job that his firm is working on at the same time, so the 7-10 days of work are completed over a longer period of time.

If your job is time-sensitive, as for a contract from your surveyor stating when they commit to completing the job.

New survey plan completion depends on several factors:

- How large is the property;

- Is it in an urban, suburban or rural area; 

- Can the surveyor get working on your survey right away?

- Is the lot backing onto a ravine or conservation land?

Typically, for a smaller (standard size) urban property it takes approximately 7-10 business days assuming the land surveyor starts the survey work immediately.

The surveying industry in Ontario is governed and regulated by the Association of Ontario Land Surveyors (www.aols.org). Surveyors hold a quasi-judicial "role" meaning that while they are paid by clients to do work, their opinions regarding boundaries are impartial. Therefore providing that the surveyor you select is a member in good standing of the AOLS, you should be getting top quality results. 

To be certain, do your due diligence and ask for references if you so choose.

Generally speaking there are two pathways to resolving a boundary dispute: either you resolve it yourself with your neighbour, or you seek legal help and resolve the dispute using the legal and court system. 

Resolving it yourself can be stressful, frustrating and require you to "dig deep" into your reserves of patience in order to work through to a resolution with your neighbour.

Short answer...no. You've done everything right here to avoid getting into a boundary dispute over a fence. You got a surveyor to stake out the property line and when the neighbour didn't agree to contribute to it you had it built just inside your property. You are building a legal structure on your property.

There is nothing they can do about it.

No you don't. And if the neighbour then puts the fence up on the property boundary you own half of a fence that you didn't have to pay for and get to enjoy all of its benefits.

As to how this will affect your future relationship with your neighbour is a different matter, of course.

If it's just a pond that gathers water and is not part of an existing or historical water system, then the part that's on your side of the boundary is yours, and the part that is on your neighbour's side is theirs.

The exception to this is if, when originally deeded, your property excluded the body of water. Water systems (lakes, rivers, streams, channels etc.) are owned by the Crown and managed by the Ministry of Natural Resources