Survey Bars and Boundary Markers in Ontario: Can a Fence Crew Pull Them, and What Happens Next
Planning a new fence, a wider driveway or a patio? Deal with the metal bar at the corner of your lot before the crew shows up, not after.
If a fence or landscaping crew pulls a survey bar out of your yard in Ontario, is that a crime, and does your property line change?
These are two separate questions with separate answers. Crime: Criminal Code s.442 and s.443(1) only catch someone who removes a boundary mark wilfully or intentionally; s.443(1) carries up to five years on indictment, and whether a given removal meets that intent test is for police and the courts to decide. Property line: for a lot on a registered plan of subdivision, Surveys Act s.54 makes the boundary shown on the plan “true and unalterable”; the bar is a physical marker of that line, and nothing in s.54 makes the line depend on the bar still being in the ground.
Source: Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, ss. 442, 443 (Justice Laws Website); Surveys Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S.30, s. 54 (Ontario e-Laws)
I’m Arthur Zhao, a real estate broker in Toronto. Picture the conversation before it happens. You have hired someone to put in a new cedar fence, or to widen the driveway, or to pour a patio along the side yard. The contractor walks the line with a can of marking paint, stops at the corner, scrapes the grass back with a boot and says: “There’s a metal bar right where my post needs to go. Okay if I pull it?”
If that bar is a survey marker, it is easy to treat it as an obstacle. But it is also physical evidence, on the ground, of where your lot ends and your neighbour’s begins.
The useful moment to think about it is before anyone picks up a shovel. So this article follows the project in order: what to sort out before the crew arrives, what to do during the work when a marker is in the way, and what is and is not affected after one has been pulled.
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Before the crew arrives: know where the bars are, and put them in writing
Two limits to keep in mind:
- The plan shows what was set at the time of that survey. Whether a marker is still in place today is something you only learn on the ground.
- If you cannot find a marker, or you need to know exactly where the line runs before a post goes in, that is surveyor work. Under the Surveyors Act, measuring land to “determine, locate, define, describe, establish, or re-establish a boundary” is the
practice of cadastral surveying, and s.11(1) reserves it to licensed surveyors.
Then put the markers into the contractor’s instructions, in plain words. The statutes in this article do not say anything about what a renovation contract must contain, so this part is practical rather than legal. What I would want in writing:
- The crew is not to pull, bend, bury or pave over any survey marker.
- If a marker is where a post, footing or edge needs to go, work stops at that spot and the crew calls you before doing anything else.
- Who arranges, and who pays for, a surveyor if one is needed because of the job.
The last point is the one that saves an argument later. None of the statutes discussed here decides who pays when a contractor disturbs a marker; if the contract is silent, you are left negotiating after the fact.
During the work: the bar is exactly where the post hole goes
The Criminal Code is where the offence lives. According to the Criminal Code (Justice Laws Website, current consolidation), s.442 makes it an offence punishable on summary conviction for anyone who “wilfully pulls down, defaces, alters or removes anything planted or set up as the boundary line or part of the boundary line of land.” Section 443(1)(b) is more specific: it covers anyone who “intentionally” removes “a boundary mark lawfully placed by a land surveyor to mark any limit, boundary or angle of a concession, range, lot or parcel of land,” and it can be prosecuted as an indictable offence with imprisonment of up to five years, or on summary conviction.
Ontario’s Surveys Act is not. The Act has no section that penalizes pulling or moving a survey marker. Its only penalty is s.6(2): interfering with or obstructing a surveyor who is exercising the right to enter land, with a fine of not more than $100.
Both Criminal Code sections turn on intent: “wilfully” in s.442, “intentionally” in s.443. Neither contains a clause that says “a person who did not know is excused,” and neither says the opposite. If a crew member knocks a bar out without realizing what it was, whether that meets the intent requirement is a question for police and the courts, not something a homeowner or a contractor gets to decide on the spot. What you can control is that nobody on your job has to find out.
So, practically, when the bar is in the way, there are two clean options:
- Design around it. Shift the post, adjust the edge of the pour, or end the fence panel short of the marker.
- Have a licensed surveyor deal with it. The Criminal Code itself contemplates this, as the next box explains.
What is not on the list: the crew pulls it now and “puts it back later.”
⚠️“We’ll put it back after” is not a fix. Re-establishing a boundary point is cadastral surveying, which Surveyors Act s.11 reserves to licensed surveyors and people working under their supervision. A bar pushed back into a hole by eye may not mark the original point, and nobody can tell by looking.
💡 My own view: the most useful sentence in this area of law is the exception, not the offence. Criminal Code s.443(2) says a land surveyor does not commit the offence when, in their operations, they take up a boundary mark “when necessary” and “carefully” replace it as it was, or take it up for a highway or other work that makes the original spot impossible to keep, provided they establish “a permanent record of the original position sufficient to permit that position to be ascertained.” Read that way, the law already expects survey marks to be moved sometimes. The question it cares about is who moves them and whether the original position is recorded. That is exactly the gap a fence crew cannot fill, and exactly what a surveyor’s involvement does.
After it’s gone: what changed, and what didn’t
The line on the plan. If your lot is on a plan of subdivision registered under the Land Titles Act or the Registry Act (that is how s.53 defines the term), s.54 of the Surveys Act says every line, boundary and corner established by survey and shown on that plan “is a true and unalterable line, boundary or corner” and is deemed defined by the original posts from the first survey. The statute does not say the line moves when a marker disappears.
One caution. Section 54 is about the original posts: the Act defines an “original post” as an object placed during the original survey or the survey of a registered plan of subdivision. The bar in your yard may be one of those, or it may have been set by a later survey. Which survey set it is something a surveyor confirms from the records, not something you can tell by looking at it.
How the point comes back. Under s.55, a surveyor re-establishing a line or corner on a plan of subdivision “shall obtain the best evidence available.” If the corner cannot be put back in its original position from that evidence, the Act gives a method: an obliterated part of a line is rejoined between the nearest ascertainable points, and a lost corner is re-established in keeping with the intent of the plan, which can mean dividing the distance between the two nearest undisputed corners proportionately as shown on the plan.
Who does it. Re-establishing a boundary is inside the Surveyors Act definition of cadastral surveying, and s.11(1) says no individual may do it without a licence, limited licence or temporary licence. Under s.11(2), an unlicensed person may do that work only at the direction and under the supervision of a licensed member. In practice, that means an Ontario Land Surveyor, not your contractor and not you.
The neighbour. A boundary marker sits on a line you share. If one is pulled, I would tell the neighbour before the surveyor shows up rather than after, because the surveyor’s work happens on that shared line. Under s.6(1) of the Surveys Act, a surveyor making a survey may enter and pass over the land of any person, and is liable for any damage caused. If the conversation turns into a disagreement about where the fence should be, or who pays for it, those are separate questions covered in our articles on boundary fence costs and on fence-line disputes and adverse possession.
ℹ️This article explains the statutes; it is not legal advice. Whether a particular removal is an offence is decided by police and the courts, and boundary questions on a specific lot need an Ontario Land Surveyor.
The marker vs the boundary: two different things
Who does what on a project near the lot line
Sorted by who holds each task, so you can hand the right list to the right person.
- ☐Find your survey and read where it shows the markers (Surveys Act s.60).
- ☐Write a “no pulling, bending or burying survey markers” line into the contractor’s instructions.
- ☐Decide in writing who arranges and pays for a surveyor if the job needs one.
- ☐Tell the neighbour before a surveyor works on the shared line.
- ☐Stop work at the spot and call you if a marker is where a post, footing or edge goes.
- ☐Design around the marker where the layout allows it.
- ☐Leave a pulled marker where it is found and report it, instead of setting it back by eye.
- ☐Locate or re-establish the boundary point (Surveyors Act s.11).
- ☐Take up and replace a marker, or record its original position, where the work requires it (Criminal Code s.443(2)).
The Fence Is in the Wrong Place, the Neighbour Took My Land — Boundary Disputes and Adverse Possession in Ontario →Who Pays for a Boundary Fence in Ontario — and Why the Line Fences Act No Longer Applies in Toronto →Do You Need a Property Survey to Buy a Home in Ontario? Surveys (RPRs) vs. Title Insurance, Explained →Ontario Home Buying Guide →
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find the survey bars on my property?
Start with your survey plan: under Ontario’s Surveys Act s.60, a plan of survey must show the position, type and form of every survey monument set in that survey. The plan shows what was set at the time, not whether it is still there. If you cannot find a marker, locating a boundary is cadastral surveying, which the Surveyors Act s.11 reserves to licensed surveyors.
Is a survey bar the same thing as my property line?
No. The bar is a physical marker; the line is a legal boundary. For a lot on a registered plan of subdivision, Ontario’s Surveys Act s.54 says the boundary shown on the plan is “true and unalterable,” and s.55 tells a surveyor how to re-establish it from the best evidence available if a marker is gone.
Does getting a new survey change where my property line is?
If your lot is on a registered plan of subdivision, a surveyor’s job is to re-establish the line shown on that plan, not draw a new one; under Surveys Act s.54 that line is “true and unalterable” with respect to the plan. Under s.55, the surveyor must use the best evidence available, and if the original position cannot be recovered, follow the plan’s intent, for example dividing the distance between the two nearest undisputed corners proportionately.
Who pays if my contractor removes a survey marker?
None of the provisions that deal with boundary marks, Criminal Code s.442 and s.443 or the Surveys Act and Surveyors Act sections covered here, says who pays to have a marker reset. That makes it a contract question. Write it into the job instructions before work starts: who arranges a licensed surveyor if a marker has to be disturbed, and who covers the cost.
Is it illegal under Ontario’s Surveys Act to pull out a survey pin?
The Surveys Act has no section penalizing the removal of a survey marker; its only offence, in s.6(2), is obstructing a surveyor who is entering land to survey, with a fine of not more than $100. The offences for removing boundary marks are in the federal Criminal Code, s.442 (wilful) and s.443 (intentional, up to five years on indictment).
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