If a boundary fence needs building or repairing and your neighbour will not share the cost, Ontario has a process for that — and it does not start in a courtroom. You ask your municipality for fence-viewers. It is fast and cheap. It also does not apply everywhere.
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You write to the clerk of your local municipality and ask for fence-viewers. Three of them attend, look at the site, hear both owners, and issue an award. The award sets out what fence is to be built or repaired, what it is made of, which owner does which portion, and how the cost is divided. An equal split is the usual starting point, not an automatic result.
The award binds both owners and runs with the land, so it survives a sale. If an owner does not do the part assigned to them, the work can be done and the cost recovered through the municipality, which can place the amount on the collector's roll and collect it the way it collects taxes. That built-in collection mechanism is the main reason the process is worth using.
An owner who disagrees has 15 days from receiving a certified copy of the award to appeal to a provincially appointed referee. The referee hears the parties and their witnesses under oath, can inspect the fence line, and may affirm, alter or set aside the award and fix costs. There is a filing fee set by regulation and adjusted annually.
A municipal council can pass a by-law exempting all or part of the municipality from the Act and deal with fences under its own by-law instead. Toronto is the largest example. Before you fill in a single form, phone the clerk's office and ask two questions: does the Line Fences Act apply here, and do you appoint fence-viewers?
The Act is also the wrong tool if you have already built the fence and want your neighbour to pay a share afterwards. It is designed to decide, in advance, who builds and who pays. Build first and ask later and you are usually left arguing unjust enrichment in Small Claims Court — a harder, slower and more expensive road with a much less certain ending.
And it does not decide where the boundary is. Fence-viewers work from the line as it stands. If the line itself is disputed, that is a surveyor's question first and a Superior Court question if it cannot be agreed. Height, materials, pool enclosures and appearance are municipal by-law matters, not Line Fences Act matters.
Fences drift. Each one gets replaced along the line of the last one, which was itself somebody's guess. In Ontario the boundary is what the registered description and an Ontario Land Surveyor say it is, not what the posts say. If there is any real doubt, buy the survey before you buy the argument.
If the survey shows the fence sits off the line, this stops being a cost-sharing problem and becomes an encroachment problem, with a different set of remedies. It can also matter for time-based claims on land still in the Registry system, where long unchallenged occupation may have affected rights.
Self-help is the most expensive move available to you. Removing or damaging a boundary fence turns a cost-sharing disagreement into a damages claim against you, and it destroys your credibility in front of fence-viewers, a referee or a judge. Photograph, document, and leave it standing.
Trees on the line deserve the same caution. Under Ontario's Forestry Act a tree whose trunk grows on the boundary is the common property of both owners, and injuring or destroying it without the other owner's consent is an offence — not merely a civil wrong.
Claims for damage to a fence, or for the cost of work you were forced to do, are money claims. Those go to Small Claims Court, which handles amounts up to $50,000.
Normally both owners, in the proportions the fence-viewers set. An equal split is the usual starting point, but they can depart from it — for example where one owner wants a fence far better than the boundary needs, or where livestock on one side is the reason a fence is required at all.
Generally not, just because they built it. The Line Fences Act works by getting a decision before the work is done. A neighbour who built first and asked later has to sue you and persuade a court you should pay. Courts do not usually force people to buy fences they never agreed to.
The process is built to work whether or not both owners cooperate. Fence-viewers can attend and issue an award anyway. Refusing to take part does not stop the award — it just means it gets made without your side of the story in front of them.
Yes. An award under the Act attaches to the land rather than to the person, so a new owner inherits the obligation to build and maintain the portion assigned to that property.
Toronto does not use the Line Fences Act. Fence disputes there run through the City's fence by-law for things like height and materials, and through the ordinary civil courts for cost-sharing. The same is true of any other municipality that has passed an exempting by-law, so check locally first.
Open your file tonight — a licensed Ontario lawyer will confirm everything with you by tomorrow.