Clear Lines, Confident Decisions

Friday, May 22, 2026

How a land survey helps farmers protect acres & plan ahead

By Mary Loggan

A land survey could matter long before there is a fence dispute or a lawyer’s letter. It confirms how many acres you own, where your boundaries lie, whether tile drainage, buildings or fences sit on your land or the neighbours’, and what easements or rights of way affect how you can use the property.

It also underpins severances, lot line adjustments and succession plans, helping farmers carve off a house, create retirement lots or reconfigure fields without surprises later.

According to Ontario Land Surveyor Gavin Tyler, who is a part-owner and quality control team lead with IBW Surveyors, a survey is an investment in knowledge that can protect a farm’s value and help landowners make better decisions for the next generation.

Why survey?

“A survey is an investment in knowledge to know the extent of your ownership and to know where your boundaries are,” Tyler says.

“It does not matter if it is a 40 foot lot in town or a 100 acre farm — the cost of a survey is pretty minor compared to the value of the land, especially in today’s market.”

Tyler lives just outside Lindsay and farms with his grandfather, cash-cropping more than 700 acres and personally cropping just under 80 acres on two farms.

For him, surveying is all about getting it right and giving clients and the public confidence in their answers.

“You cannot just rely on the MPAC statement to say what the acreage is,” he says.

“We have seen significant errors because those numbers are derived — they are not based on a legal survey. It is not until you get boots on the ground that we can confirm a boundary and the corresponding parcel acreage.

“I have seen many cases where a boundary is determined to be a hundred feet or more different from where certain parties originally thought, and over the full length of a farm, that can add up to a lot of acres.”

On the buy side, he sees a survey as the only way to turn stories and listing sheets into facts.

“If you are buying a property, when you are looking at a real estate ad, or you are out there with an agent, and they are telling you what you are buying, there is no certainty to that,” he explains.

“Nothing truly replaces what a legal survey provides.”

Due to the title insurance and Ontario’s Land Titles System, most transactions close without a survey.

“You do not need a survey for a lawyer to finalize most transactions,” he notes.

“It is not normally something you need until you actually need it — and by that point, things have usually escalated, and it is an afterthought.”

At that stage, the work becomes remedial action, figuring out where the boundary is after tensions have risen or after something has already been installed, he explains.

Looked at as a share of the investment, he says, the cost is small.

“When you do the math, a survey typically ranges from about half a per cent to one per cent of the value of the land.

“It is a valuable document that lives with the land — a legal survey does not technically expire, even if there are currently no boundary issues or plans to sell any time soon, a survey plan is something that can be handed down with the farm to the next generation.”

Potential challenges

Tyler has seen what happens when boundaries are assumed instead of confirmed. In one recent file, a farmer tiled a field before ordering a survey.

“We discovered that quite a bit of that tile infrastructure was actually over the boundary line,” he recalls.

“That obviously gets into encroachment and boundary dispute situations between landowners.”

For him, the lesson is simple.

“Being proactive about knowing where your boundaries are is always a bonus.

“There are lots of instances where people make assumptions — somebody told them that the fence is the boundary, or they just assume the fence is the boundary — and then they act on that.

“It might be 10 years later when something triggers a survey, and we determine there was an error or a false assumption.”

He understands why surveys are not ordered more often before a purchase, but sees the risk in skipping that step.

“It is not as common as it probably should be for surveys to be completed before a transaction.

“That is just the nature of a competitive real estate market — when a good opportunity comes, people want to buy with no conditions. But if there is any question, there is real value in having that knowledge.”

The line on the ground is only part of the story. Land can also be impacted by easements and rights of way that limit how it can be used.

“Land can be affected by interests.”

“That might be an easement for a buried Bell line, a municipal drain, a gas line — any utility infrastructure — and then we also have private easements between landowners, like rights of way that allow people to cross over someone else’s land.

“It might be clear from the title that you are subject to a right of way, and your lawyer might tell you that your neighbour has the right to cross a strip of your land.

“But you might not understand exactly where that strip is or what the maintenance obligations are. If it is not clear to both parties, it can cause tension.”

His own family has dealt with that.

“On one of our family farms, there was a separate lot that never had its own driveway built after it was severed.

“They were accessing their house using our farm entrance and laneway, but they did not have a legal right-of-way over it. This was only part of it, as they were also occupying up to a cattle fence that was close to 40 feet beyond their boundary.”

When physical evidence disappears, reconstructing a boundary becomes more complex.

“When fence rows are ripped out, sometimes physical boundary evidence is wiped out, even if the land has been surveyed before,” he says.

“Iron bars can get hit by plows or Bush Hogs and torn out. At that point, it is a matter of reconstructing the boundary to the best of our ability with whatever evidence we have, including historical documents or aerial imagery.”

In some cases, surveyors rely on sworn testimony.

“As an Ontario land surveyor, I can take an affidavit — verbal evidence — as testimony of people’s knowledge of a boundary,” he says.

“A former landowner might testify about what they understood the boundary to be, or someone might remember a fence that used to be there.”

Once a dispute escalates, costs rise quickly.

“Being proactive is a great way to avoid disputes,” he says.

“Once disputes escalate and lawyers are involved on both sides, it becomes more costly, and it is just a fight.

“At the end of the day, you still have to live beside the person. ‘Good fences make good neighbours’ is an old saying that I repeat more than you would think, but it is true.”

Planning ahead

For Tyler, good planning starts with a conversation — before you pour concrete, split a parcel or sign a deal.

“If you are interested, that is the first step — pick up the phone.

“For severances specifically, the information is public, but understanding the by-laws and policies to know what is realistic and feasible can be a challenge, so it pays to have it investigated.”

A full farm survey is not always required.

“We do not have to survey an entire property,” he says. “If there is only an area of concern — maybe the back corner or the west side of the farm — we can focus on that specific boundary.”

Much of his work involves severances, especially surplus farmhouses.

“One of the very common severances is to take the existing farmhouse off.

“Farmers are buying farms, but do not necessarily want to be landlords. They retain us to help take the existing farmhouse off so they can sell it as a separate parcel and keep the farmland.

“By selling the house, they drop their investment cost significantly on the farmland.”

There can also be opportunities for retirement and succession.

“Severance requirements are not a blanket over the whole province,” he cautions.

“There are still areas where you can carve off a vacant lot for a retired farmer. That allows the next generation to step into the main operation and perhaps the farmhouse, and the retiring farmer can build a small bungalow in the corner of the 100 acre farm.”

Sometimes the goal is simply a better fit between neighbours.

“It is not all about taking a lot off.

“Sometimes we are dealing with transferring 50 acres from one farm to an adjacent property. We can do lot line adjustments — you start with two properties, and you end with two properties, but the size and boundaries change.”

Often, his role is to match the tool to the question.

“When a client contacts us, it starts by us asking a lot of questions. What is the purpose? What is the end goal? What do you need to know? Then we figure out how to make it as cost effective as possible and give them the answers they need.

“Knowledge is valuable,” Tyler says.

“If you know where you stand and what you own, it is a lot easier to make good decisions for your farm and to stay on good terms with the people around you.” BF