Can Alberta Land Surveyors come on to my property without notice?

In the process of performing surveys, Alberta Land Surveyors are often required to excavate the ground in order to find buried monuments. These survey monuments govern the property boundary between adjacent landowners and/or the municipality.

In the case of a street owned by the municipality, the common boundary with a private landowner is typically several metres back from the street curb, into the lawn.

Landowners are often surprised when they learn that large portions of their front lands are on municipal property and maintenance/care of that portion of the lawn is governed by municipal bylaw.

According to section 16 of the Surveys Act, "a surveyor and his authorized assistants may, using reasonable care, pass over, measure along and ascertain the bearings of any line or boundary, and for those purposes may pass over or through the land of any person, but the surveyor is liable for any damage the surveyor or his assistants cause."

The Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association strongly encourages its members to contact landowners prior to coming onto a property and in the event that a landowner is not home, to leave a card that a survey crew has been on the property.

The Association has developed a document to help mitigate property damage and minimize the impact of accessing monuments.