"WOULD you mind if
we cleared the back part
of your yard for a drive-
way to our garage?,”
asks your neighbour.

You don’t mind. It's just
bush, and vou don’t use it.
Besides, you want to be a
good neighbour.

In a few years, you'd like
to build a storage shed there.
But you can worry about that
later when the time comes,
right?

Wrong.

H you don’t write down
your understanding, you run
the risk of unwittingly giving
your neighbour rights to vour
property.

Consider the case of
Stanley and Shirley Ellis and
their neighbours on Bowen
Island, a 15-minute ferrv-ride
from West Vancouver.
Between them, they owned
10 residential lots in the
Bluewater subdivision, Each
lor had a parking pull-our and
a footpath or set of stairs from
Windjammer Road. But drive-
way access was impractical
because their lors rose steeply
from the road.

Their homes actually sat
closer to. a lane owned by
Eddy Holding Lud.. the devel-
oper of the subdivision. Bur
since abour 1968, Eddy
Holdings had permitted the
ENlises and their neighbours to
use the rane to access their
homes. Over the years, many
of the homeowners built dri-
veways from the lane to their
homes or recontigured their
front doors to fice the lane,
and one house had a new
garage accessible only from
the lane.

In 1992, however, Mrs.
Menzies, the president of
Eddy Holdings, starred deny-
ing access to the lane by plac-
ing boulders on it. The prob-
lem was that the way the lane
was configured effectively pre-

AP

ede

perty ri

vented Eddy Hoidings from
subdividing approximately five
acres of its property. Mrs.
Menzics retused to look after
its upkeep or allow the aftect-
ed homeowners to maintain
it.

Mr. and Mrs. Eltis and the
other property owners took
Eddy Holdings to court. T!
argued that they had an “ease-
ment” or legal right to use the
lane forever,

The B.C. Supreme Court
said that the homeowners had
a “lcence™ instead — an equi-
table right to use the lane,
which could be withdrawn on
reasonable notice. “The court
gave Eddy Holdings six
months to come up with a
reconfiguration of the lane
that would affect the least
amount of its developable
lind. [If acceptable, the home-
owners would then pay for the
costs of building the new lane
and its upkeep.

Normally, a licence is per-
mission to make use of your
property that vou can take
back. But che court com-
mented that if the person
making use of your property
relies on your permission to

his detriment (for example, by
spending money, say, to build
2 tool shed that sits partly on
your property), then you, the
owner, shouldn't be allowed
to change your mind later.

The permission you gave
could become a property right
that is irrevocable and similar
to an easement

If vou decide to allow your
neighbour to grow vegetables
in your garden or build a dri-
veway through your property,
you'll want to make sure you
gan withdraw your permission
later.

This column has been writ-
ten with the assistance of Daryl
Collier of the North Vancouver
law firm of Ratcliff &
Company, Suite 500, 221 West
Esplanade, 988-5201. The cal-
umn provides information only
and must not be relied on for
leqai advice.

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Sunday, August 22, 1999 — North Shore News — 13

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Rear Brakes (shoes inchuted)

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