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ARTICLE · 29 AUGUST 2017

Cottage Country Access Lessons

Gardiner Roberts LLP
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With the 2017 summer cottage season winding down, a recent case involving sparing neighbours reminds us of the importance of ensuring you have some form of legalized road access to your rural retreat.

CanadaReal Estate and Construction
James R.G. Cook
James R.G. Cook
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With the 2017 summer cottage season winding down, a recent case involving sparing neighbours reminds us of the importance of ensuring you have some form of legalized road access to your rural retreat.

Brown v Savage, 2017 ONSC 4357, involved two waterfront properties on Buckham’s Bay on the Ottawa River. Mr. & Mrs. Brown purchased their property in 1995.

In 2013, their neighbour sold his cottage to Ms. Savage.

Car access to the Browns’ property from the local municipal road was via an unpaved but maintained laneway traversing through the back of Ms. Savage’s newly-acquired land. Apparently, this state of affairs had existed for years before the purchase of either of the properties by the Browns and Ms. Savage, with the Browns and their former property owners contributing to the maintenance of the laneway and even offering at one point to have it paved (which the former owner of the Savage property declined).

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