Easement Surveys in the Sea to Sky

Developing real estate, sharing infrastructure, or securing access across a neighbour’s parcel requires establishing clear, legally binding property rights. In the Sea to Sky, an easement is a specialized right that one person may exercise with respect to the land of another, requiring both a "dominant tenement" (the property benefiting from the right) and a "servient tenement" (the property burdened by it). Whether you are securing a critical access corridor, registering shared utility services, or resolving an encroachment, ensuring these rights are accurately mapped and legally defined is primary to the success of your real estate investment. As a dual-registered firm of British Columbia Land Surveyors (BCLS) and Professional Engineers, we deliver the professional geomatics engineering and high statutory authority required to accurately delineate your easement areas and protect your property rights.

Defining the spatial limits of an easement constitutes the "practice of land surveying" under the Land Surveyors Act, meaning only a commissioned member of the Association of British Columbia Land Surveyors (ABCLS) holds the exclusive statutory authority to determine, establish, and certify these boundaries. Relying on unlicensed individuals to map your access routes or utility corridors exposes your project to severe legal liabilities. An easement differs significantly from a Statutory Right of Way (SRW), as an SRW does not require a dominant tenement and is typically held by governments or public utilities under Section 218 of the Land Title Act.

Our professionals expertly navigate the complex legislative frameworks governing easements. Under Section 223 of the Land Title Act, if a dominant tenement is subdivided, the benefit of the registered easement is automatically annexed to each of the new parcels unless explicitly designated otherwise by the land surveyor on the subdivision plan. In multi-family developments, Section 69 of the Strata Property Act creates implied easements for vertical and sideways support, shelter, and the passage of utilities between strata lots and common property without the need for registration in the land title office; however, these implied easements for shelter and support do not apply to bare land strata plans. Furthermore, if an existing easement becomes obsolete or impedes the reasonable use of your land, our surveys support legal applications under Section 35 of the Property Law Act, which empowers the Supreme Court to modify or cancel registered easements.

To achieve the high absolute and relative accuracy standards mandated by the Surveyor General and the ABCLS, our firm deploys an professional arsenal of cutting-edge geomatics equipment. During the preliminary mapping phase of expansive sites, we utilize Aerial Drone Photogrammetry and Aerial Drone LiDAR to penetrate dense vegetation and generate accurate 3D topographic terrain models. We establish a highly robust primary survey control network utilizing Static GNSS Receivers to integrate your property into the provincial active control system. From this framework, our survey crews utilize RTK GNSS Receivers for the rapid, centimeter-accurate positioning of legal boundaries in open-sky environments. In dense urban corridors in the Sea to Sky or under heavy tree canopy where satellite signals are obstructed, we deploy high-precision Robotic Total Stations to run closed-loop traverses. When an easement involves highly complex architectural features, party walls, or overlapping structural encroachments, we utilize Terrestrial LiDAR (3D laser scanning) to capture a accurate, high-density 3D point cloud of the as-built conditions, empowering our engineers to accurately draft the easement boundaries.