Neighbour Blocking Access to My Property in Ontario: Your Rights

Finding a gate locked, a lane closed off or a fence across your usual route is stressful, especially if you rely on that route to reach your home, garage or back lot.

What you can do depends on why you have the right to use the route in the first place. This article walks through the questions that usually decide it: easements, long use, the boundary line and fences. It explains general principles and does not replace advice on your situation.

First question: what gives you the right to use the route?

If you have a registered easement, the right is recorded on the title of the land it crosses and may also be recorded on your own title. Registered land is subject to existing rights of way and other easements unless the register says otherwise.

If there is no registered easement, you may have a claim based on long use. A claim to a right of way cannot be defeated if the right was actually used without interruption for the full period of twenty years, and after forty years of such use the right is absolute. Those claims have limits, covered below.

How long use and blocking interact

• Written permission can stop the forty-year absolute right from arising.
• For land under the Land Titles Act, no adverse right can be acquired by any length of possession or prescription, although the bar does not prejudice an adverse claim based on possession by a person who was in possession when the first owner was registered with a possessory title only.
• An act counts as an interruption only if the affected person put up with it or accepted it for one year after having notice of it.

The last point is a reason not to wait. If you are blocked and say and do nothing for a year, a later argument that your use was never interrupted may be harder. Speak to a lawyer promptly so you understand how this applies to you.

Is it really your neighbour's land, or the boundary?

Some blockages come from a disagreement about where the property line runs. The Line Fences Act process does not decide where the property line is, and the Ontario government says owners must settle boundary disputes themselves, often with legal advice and a survey.

An application can be made to the Director of Titles under the Boundaries Act where there is doubt about the true location of a boundary on the ground. It must include an up-to-date plan of survey signed by a surveyor and the field notes. If someone objects, the Director must offer a hearing. Once a boundary is confirmed and certified, it is deemed to be the true boundary despite any other Act. A party aggrieved by the Director's order may appeal to the Divisional Court within thirty days after the order is mailed.

If the blockage is a fence or gate

An owner may build, maintain and keep up a fence that marks the boundary between their land and the neighbour's land. Fence-viewers can handle disputes only where there is no fence and one owner wants one, or there is a fence and an owner thinks it needs repair or rebuilding. They can decide only how the work is divided and the description of the fence.

That process does not cover a fence built on one owner's own initiative where they then want the neighbour to share the cost. It also may not be available at all, since a municipality may provide that the Act does not apply to all or part of it. Height and design rules come from local by-laws, not one provincial rule, so your municipality is the place to ask whether a gate or fence is allowed.

If a tree has fallen on a line fence, the owner or occupant of the land where the tree stood must immediately remove it and repair the fence.

What to do next

• Photograph the blockage with dates, and keep a log of when it began and each time you are stopped.
• Get your title and your neighbour's title, and look for any easement.
• Gather evidence of how long you have used the route and whether permission was ever given.
• Consider a survey if the boundary is in doubt.
• Contact your municipality about fence or gate by-laws.
• Put your concerns to the neighbour calmly in writing, and see a lawyer before removing anything yourself or taking other steps that could make matters worse.

Frequently asked questions