Frequently Asked Questions

- Do I need a survey when I purchase property?
- Do I Need a Survey When I Sell My Property?
- What is Title Insurance?
- Can Title Insurance Eliminate the Need to   Obtain an Up-to-date Survey?
- Adverse Possession

Do I Need a Survey When I Purchase Property?

Typically your house and property represent your largest assets. If you are contemplating purchasing property, you should know as much as possible about the piece of land you are going to invest in. Obtaining a Surveyors Real Property Report (SRPR) may be the most important thing you do before you close the deal on any purchase. Without a survey, you may not know the extent of your property. Without a survey, there is much you do not know about the property and you are putting your investment potentially at risk.

A Surveyors Real Property Report (SRPR) that will reveal:

• Whether other people are entitled to partial use of your property through easements for utilities or rights-of-way

• Whether fences, trees, buildings, gardens, embankments, driveways, walkways, swimming pools, house additions and other property improvements actually lay on your property

• Whether your deed describes your property accurately

If no up-to-date survey exists for the property you wish to buy, you should make it a condition of purchase that one be provided for you.

Title Insurance is not a replacement for a survey. In fact, most Title Insurance policies do not cover items such as fences or retaining walls encroaching onto you or your neighbour’s property that would have been shown on your SRPR.

Do I Need a Survey When I Sell My Property?

Under the Vendor and Purchaser’s Agreement Act, a vendor is only obligated to provide a registerable description of the land being sold, although many Agreements of Purchase and Sale contain a clause obligating the seller to provide “… any title deed, abstract or survey which are already in the seller’s possession.” Generally there is no obligation to provide a new survey, unless it is specifically requested in the Agreement of Purchase and Sale.

What is Title Insurance?

Title insurance is a form of insurance that originated in the United States, and has been sold in Canada since 1991.

Title Insurance is still used in much of the United States because of:

• The continued poor condition of deed registry systems in many states.

• The uneven manner in which American lawyers and surveyors are licensed and regulated from state to state.

• The custom in some jurisdictions to complete real estate transactions through escrow companies without the benefit of legal advice.

In Canada, however, the orderly opening of the land for development, and the subsequent evolution of our Land Registry systems, have provided security of tenure through reliable documentation of land ownership and of interests in land.

Canadians, unlike our neighbours to the south, have traditionally relied upon surveys of the properties they were about to purchase to reveal information about the property that was not available solely through the title records.

When a survey is made, the municipality can be contacted to confirm that the building(s) on the property conform to the zoning and building by-laws. A current survey will alert a purchaser or lender to any problems such as recently built additions, outbuildings or garages that extend beyond the property limits or contravene the municipal by-laws. The survey will reveal the existence of easements, rights-of-way or encroachments and any disparities between the legal description of the land and the extent of occupation.

Can Title Insurance Eliminate the Need to Obtain an Up-to-date Survey?

Purchasers are being advised that the cost of a survey can be avoided with the purchase, at a lower cost, of title insurance. The inference is that the survey is of no value to the purchaser and can conveniently be replaced by title insurance to expedite loan approval. This is unfortunate, because title insurance does not provide any information about a property to an owner or lender. Any problems that may have been revealed by a survey are passed on to the uninformed purchaser or lender, to be resolved by them at some later date.

Title Insurance is not a replacement for a survey. In fact, most Title Insurance policies do not cover items such as fences or retaining walls encroaching onto you or your neighbour’s property that would have been shown on your SRPR.

Title insurance may well have a place in real estate transactions, especially those involving complicated land assemblies and financing. It should be viewed as complimentary to the traditional process of investigation of quality and extent of title, rather than as an alternative.

Adverse Possession

“My neighbour says that the old fence between our properties is 2 feet onto his side. He wants to move the fence over, yet I have been told that I can claim title to this strip of land. What rights do I have?

The legal question of “adverse possession”, also commonly known as “squatter’s rights”, is a fairly complex legal issue that, among other issues, will depend on where the property is located. In some parts of Ontario, adverse possession no longer applies due to provincial legislation. Your legal rights with respect to adverse possession can best be addressed by your solicitor. Your solicitor may wish to engage a surveyor to accurately determine the location of the property boundary with respect to the fence or other improvements to the property so that you and your solicitor are aware of the extent of the problem.

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