Question: What Type of Information Does a Survey Provide?
Answer: The type of information a survey provides includes a property’s legal boundaries, dimensions, and the placement of all structures (house, fences, etc.). It reveals crucial details like encroachments from neighbouring properties, easements for utilities, and confirms compliance with local by-laws, which helps to protect your real estate investment.
The Details That a Property Survey Reveals
Buying a home is a significant financial decision. You inspect the house, check the neighbourhood, and review the finances. One document often overlooked is the property survey. A survey is a specialized map of a property, created by a licensed surveyor. It provides a wealth of critical information that protects your investment. Understanding what type of information a survey provides is essential for any potential homeowner. This document goes far beyond simply showing you a drawing of your land; it details your legal rights and physical limitations associated with the property.
A survey offers a clear and legally recognized picture of the property. It identifies the precise boundaries, the location of buildings, and any restrictions that affect your ownership. Without a survey, you are relying on assumptions about your property lines and rights. These assumptions can lead to costly disputes with neighbours or issues with the municipality. An up-to-date survey provides certainty. It ensures the property you are buying is exactly as the seller represents it. This knowledge empowers you to make a fully informed purchase decision, securing your peace of mind for years to come.
Defining Your Property’s Exact Boundaries
A primary function of a property survey is to establish the legal boundaries of your land. An Ontario Land Surveyor visits the property to locate or place official survey markers. These markers, often iron bars or monuments, define the precise corners of your lot. The survey plan, which is the drawing the surveyor produces, illustrates these boundaries with exact measurements and dimensions. This visual representation removes all guesswork about where your property ends and your neighbour’s begins. You can see the official shape and size of the land you own.
Knowing these boundaries is vital for many reasons. It prevents disputes over the placement of fences, hedges, or driveways. For example, you might want to build a new fence along what you believe is the property line. A survey confirms the correct location, preventing you from accidentally building on your neighbour’s land. This simple verification can save you from future legal conflicts and the expense of moving a misplaced structure. The survey acts as an authoritative guide for you and your neighbours, promoting good relationships and clear ownership from the start.
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Locating All Buildings and Improvements
A property survey provides a detailed map of all the physical structures on the land. It shows the exact location of the main house, a detached garage, sheds, decks, swimming pools, and even large retaining walls. This part of the survey is called an inventory of the property’s physical improvements. The surveyor measures the distance of each structure from the property boundaries. This information is crucial for verifying compliance with municipal zoning by-laws. Most municipalities have setback requirements, which dictate how far a building must be from the property lines.
If a previous owner built a deck or a shed too close to the boundary, it might violate a by-law. A survey brings these issues to light. Knowing this allows you to address the problem with the seller before the sale closes. It can also identify if structures were built without the necessary permits. The survey plan gives you a complete overhead view of the property’s layout. This helps you visualize how you can use the space and plan future additions or landscaping projects with confidence, knowing you are working within the legal and physical confines of your land.
Identifying Potential Encroachments
An encroachment occurs when a building, fence, or other structure illegally extends beyond a property’s legal boundary onto adjacent land. A survey is the most effective tool for identifying encroachments. These issues can involve your property encroaching on a neighbour’s, or a neighbour’s property encroaching on yours. For instance, your neighbour’s newly built garage might have a roof overhang that crosses the property line by a few inches. Or, the fence you thought belonged to the seller might actually be three feet inside your new property.
Encroachments can lead to serious legal disputes and can be expensive to resolve. They can also affect the title to your property and your ability to sell it in the future. Title insurance companies may refuse to cover problems related to known encroachments. An up-to-date survey identifies these problems early in the buying process. This gives you the opportunity to require the seller to fix the issue or to negotiate a different solution. Discovering an encroachment before you purchase protects you from inheriting a potentially complicated and costly legal battle with your new neighbour.
Confirming the Official Legal Description
Every property has two identifiers: its municipal address and its legal description. The municipal address, such as 123 Main Street, is for mail delivery and emergency services. The legal description is the official identifier used in all legal documents, including the deed and mortgage. It describes the property’s exact location using a system of lot and plan numbers or metes and bounds descriptions. A property survey’s most fundamental job is to confirm that the physical land you are viewing matches its official legal description on file at the Land Registry Office.
This confirmation is essential to ensure you are buying the correct parcel of land. Clerical errors in legal documents can happen, and a survey acts as a physical verification of the written record. It ensures the size and shape of the property described in the deed are accurate. Without a survey, there is a small but significant risk of a discrepancy between the legal documents and the actual property. This could create major title problems. The survey provides certainty that the property’s legal foundation is sound and that you are obtaining a clear title to the land.
The Surveyor’s Real Property Report Explained
In many Ontario real estate transactions, the key survey document is a Surveyor’s Real Property Report, or SRPR. An SRPR is a comprehensive document prepared by a licensed Ontario Land Surveyor. It consists of two important parts. The first is the plan of survey, which is the detailed drawing of the property. It shows boundaries, dimensions, and the location of all buildings, fences, easements, and visible improvements. The second part is a written report, which provides the surveyor’s professional opinion on the state of the property.
The written report will comment on any issues discovered during the survey. The surveyor will state if the property complies with municipal by-laws, if there are any encroachments, or if other problems exist. An SRPR provides a complete snapshot of the property at a specific point in time. Lenders and title insurance companies often require an up-to-date SRPR to protect their investments. For a buyer, this report consolidates all the critical survey information into one official document, offering a clear and reliable assessment of the property’s condition before finalizing the purchase.
Conclusion
A property survey is a protective tool for any home buyer. It provides a clear, factual, and legally binding record of a property’s physical and legal characteristics. The information it contains clarifies boundaries, preventing disagreements with neighbours over fences or driveways. It reveals hidden restrictions like easements that could limit future building plans. A survey also identifies serious issues such as encroachments or violations of municipal by-laws, allowing you to resolve them before they become your problem. This document gives you a true understanding of what you are actually buying, far beyond what you can see during a walkthrough.
Investing in a survey is an investment in certainty. It ensures the legal description on your deed matches the physical land, protecting you from title defects. For a relatively small cost, you gain invaluable knowledge that protects your much larger investment in the home itself. Having a current survey provides peace of mind. It confirms that your property is free from many common and costly issues.
