The Title Search That Saves Your Project: Easements & Rights-of-Way
An easement buried in your property's title can quietly eliminate the exact spot where you planned to build. A title search before design is cheap insurance against that.
Why a Survey Isn't Enough
Most homeowners think a property survey tells them everything they need to know about what they can build and where, but a survey shows physical boundaries and existing structures, not the legal encumbrances attached to the title itself. Easements, rights-of-way, and restrictive covenants are registered on title, not necessarily visible on a survey or obvious from walking the yard, and they can restrict or entirely prohibit construction in specific areas of an otherwise buildable-looking lot. A title search, a review of the property's registered legal history, is the only reliable way to uncover these restrictions before they surface as a problem during permit review or, worse, after construction has already started in the wrong spot. It's a small, easy step to skip precisely because nothing about a typical backyard makes an easement obvious, which is exactly why it deserves deliberate attention rather than an assumption that a clean-looking yard means a clean title.
Hydro and Utility Easements
One of the most common encumbrances on GTA residential lots is a hydro easement, a registered right allowing the utility company access to poles, transformers, or underground lines that may run through or along the edge of a backyard. Building over or too close to a hydro easement is generally prohibited, and utility companies can and do require structures to be relocated or removed if they encroach on a registered easement, regardless of whether a municipal building permit was issued. Similar easements exist for sanitary and storm sewers, gas lines, and telecommunications infrastructure. These easements often run in a straight strip across a property, and depending on where they fall, they can eliminate the exact rear or side portion of a yard a homeowner had pictured for their garden suite, which is precisely why checking for them is a pre-design task, not a permit-stage discovery.
Mutual Drives and Shared Access
On some GTA lots, particularly older subdivisions and some corner or narrow lots, a mutual drive or shared right-of-way gives a neighbouring property legal access across a portion of your land, typically for driveway or garage access. These arrangements are registered on title and remain binding regardless of how long ago they were established or whether current owners on either side are aware of the details. A mutual drive running along a side yard can eliminate that area as a construction access route, an emergency access path location, or a buildable zone for the suite itself, and untangling what a specific mutual drive agreement actually permits sometimes requires a real estate lawyer's review of the original registered document, not just a general assumption based on how the driveway is currently used, since the written terms can be considerably narrower or broader than decades of informal practice would suggest.
Restrictive Covenants: The Quiet Ones
Restrictive covenants are private agreements, sometimes decades old, registered on title that limit what can be built on a property, occasionally including provisions that predate modern zoning and address things like building setbacks, structure types, or even aesthetic requirements that have nothing to do with current municipal by-laws. Many are effectively obsolete or unenforceable, but some remain valid and can genuinely restrict a garden suite even where current zoning would otherwise permit it. These are the encumbrances most likely to be missed entirely without a proper title search, since they don't show up in a zoning review, a survey, or a conversation with the municipality, all of which focus on current public regulation rather than private historical agreements attached to a specific property's title.
When to Order a Title Search
The right time to review title is during feasibility, alongside the zoning check and site survey, well before design fees are spent on a floor plan that assumes an unencumbered lot. A real estate lawyer can pull and review the current title for a modest fee, generally a small fraction of overall project soft costs, and flag any easements, rights-of-way, or covenants that affect the buildable area. This is inexpensive insurance against a genuinely costly outcome: discovering an easement after drawings are complete, or worse, after construction has started, which can force a redesign, a relocation, or in rare cases a dispute with a utility company or neighbour that could have been avoided entirely by a title search costing a few hundred dollars.
Building This Into Your Feasibility Process
A thorough feasibility review doesn't stop at zoning and physical site conditions; it includes confirming what the title itself allows. Home Garden Suites recommends every client either provide their existing title information or have it reviewed as part of the earliest planning stages, and we coordinate with real estate lawyers where an easement or covenant needs professional interpretation. Catching a title issue in week one of feasibility costs a homeowner almost nothing beyond the lawyer's fee; catching the same issue after permit drawings are complete can mean redesign costs, lost time, and in the worst cases, a project that has to relocate the entire suite. It's a small, unglamorous step that consistently pays for itself.
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