Road Use Agreements

[Gilroy]

We access our property via ATV on a basic trail on an unopened road allowance. It is about 1km from the road that is seasonally maintained by the town. We may improve this trail so we can drive to the cabin. This requires that we sign a road use agreement with the town, since they own the land. Anyone have experience with these agreements and any words of advice? The town has told us that we will need $5,000,000 worth of liability insurance for the "road". Anyone know a decent insurance agent that might know about this stuff?

My first question would be "how have you established the leaps and bounds of the road allowance".Has there ever been a survey,in other words do you know you are on the Township road allowance of 66 feet.Normally the Township would issue letters to adjoining property owners before they do anything.The insurance for instance might be liability insurance in case somebody gets hurt while improving the road.The Municipal Act specifies that a roadway must meet Township standards,I would be careful you might be opening a can of worms.

[B Wilson]

Are you the only land locked parcel? Ask the township if the will sell the road allowance to you, only works if you're not cutting someone else off.

[mbmellis]

The town wont sell the road allowance since there are others that use it also. Yes they require a survey also as part of the project.

[Species8472]

This law firm and particularly the partner Jeff Wilker, specializes in municipal matters and would fully understand all the issues:

https://www.thomsonrogers.com/directory/jeff-wilker/

All of my clients that are rural townships currently use him.

[mbmellis]

This law firm and particularly the partner Jeff Wilker, specializes in municipal matters and would fully understand all the issues:

https://www.thomsonrogers.com/directory/jeff-wilker/

All of my clients that are rural townships currently use him.

Thanks for that. True specialists are hard to find. I am pretty happy with my existing lawyer, who is up to speed and we are almost finished. Finding liability insurance is almost the last step.

[Gilroy]

The town wont sell the road allowance since there are others that use it also. Yes they require a survey also as part of the project.

Is there an existing survey of this 1km of road allowance,if not this will be expensive.I would think his would be the first step.

[sawbill]

On the Manitoulin there are very few defined property boundaries yet parcels get sold off every day. Disputes between land owners are usually settled by mutual agreement and if they can't be resolved then each party can expect monstrous legal bills to fix. Somehow the municipalities manage to survive these transactions as well and that includes easements.

[Bluebulldog]

I have my cottage insurance through R. Robertson Insurance Brokers. They specialize in cottage and rural area insurance, chances are, they've handled just this sort of thing previously. I'd give them a call.

http://www.rrib.com/welcome.html