Severing or subdividing a lot: the survey steps
Want to split your lot or create a new parcel? The approval and survey steps in Canada, from the first talk with your municipality to the plan registered at the land registry office.
Splitting a property into two lots, adjusting a line with a neighbour or creating a new building lot always involves two partners: the municipal approval authority, which decides whether the new lots are allowed, and a land surveyor, who prepares the plans that make them legally exist.
The vocabulary depends on the province. In Ontario, creating one or a few lots usually goes through a consent (often called a severance) granted by the committee of adjustment or the land division committee; larger projects need a plan of subdivision. Other provinces have a subdivision approval process under their own planning legislation.
The usual steps
- Talk to the planning department. Ask whether the zoning and the official plan allow a new lot of the size you want, and which documents the application needs.
- Sketch from a surveyor. Many municipalities ask for a sketch showing the existing lot, the proposed lines, the buildings and the distances. A surveyor can prepare it from an existing survey or a new one.
- Application and decision. The municipality circulates the application, may hold a hearing and sets conditions (road widening, servicing, fees, zoning compliance).
- Reference plan or plan of survey. Once the conditions are known, the surveyor surveys the new lines, sets the monuments and prepares the plan to be deposited or registered at the land registry office.
- Registration. Your lawyer registers the documents. The new lot can then be sold or financed on its own.
How to prepare
- Gather your deed and any earlier survey of the property.
- Ask the planning department for the pre-consultation requirements before you pay for a full application.
- Check servicing early: water, sewer or septic, and access to a public road are frequent conditions.
- Allow time: conditions often have a deadline to be fulfilled after the decision.
Describe your project in the form: commissioned land surveyors in your province get back to you with a written quote for the sketch and the survey.