Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Scope of the surveyor’s mandate in a bornage process and whether it could validly include analysis of possession and acquisitive prescription
• Weight and rebuttal of the presumptive reliability of an arpenteur-géomètre’s boundary report, particularly its legal conclusions on prescription
• Competing claims to a boundary line between contiguous immovables (Lots 59 and 60) based on titles, historic surveys, physical markers and occupation on the ground
• Sufficiency of the defendant’s acts of possession (use of a forest road and sentier) to meet the criteria of continuous, peaceful, public and non-equivocal possession for acquisitive prescription
• Impact of concurrent and tolerated use by the titled owners (hunting, maple operation, forestry activities, circulation on the land) on the alleged exclusivity and clarity of the defendant’s possession
• Allocation and enforcement of responsibility for survey costs and expert fees under a convention de bornage, including high contractual interest and court costs

Factual background

Bouchard and Ross are the registered owners of a forested property corresponding to part of original Lot 60, range 3, in the Canton of Harvey, in the Chicoutimi land registry. Their lot is bounded to the north-west by neighbouring Lot 59, to the north-east by Lot 60 in range 4, to the south by Boulevard Tadoussac (Route 172), and to the south-east by Lot 61. Within their title, a portion was previously sold to a third party, Martin Girard, with detailed metes and bounds and a precise reference to the original line separating Lots 59 and 60.
Villeneuve is the owner of the adjoining Lot 59, range 3, also in the Canton of Harvey. His title describes a large tract of land divided into several parts (A, B, C and D), bounded in particular by Route 172, municipal forest roads (including chemin du Lac-Laurent), Lot 58 to the west, and Lot 60 to the east. Historically, chemin du Lac-Laurent was constructed and owned first by the Québec government and then ceded to the municipality, and a series of older survey plans showed this road as lying entirely on Lot 59 rather than on Lot 60.
The dispute centres on the exact location of the boundary between Lots 59 and 60. The plaintiffs maintain that the true line is the “ligne de lot originaire” between the two original lots. The defendant claims, by contrast, that his use of a forest road and trail in the area, running roughly along that line and extending northwards, has led to acquisitive prescription over part of Lot 60, effectively shifting the functional boundary to the east.

Origins of the boundary dispute

In 2015, seeking clarity on their property limits, Bouchard and Ross retained surveyor-geomatics professional Serge Martineau to prepare a certificat de piquetage. Martineau’s certificate located the boundary between Lots 59 and 60 on the original cadastral lot line. Relying on this work, the plaintiffs took the position that this original line was the true dividing line and asserted their rights against Villeneuve.
In the meantime, Villeneuve had been using a forest access route to reach and exploit the northern part of Lot 59. According to him, around 2003–2004 he discussed a forestry access with Bouchard, who allegedly placed blue ribbons with a compass to indicate a line the defendant understood to be the limit. Villeneuve then built a forest trail (sentier) northward from the existing chemin du Lac-Laurent, with a deviation agreed upon to go around a rocky outcrop. He later used this route to haul wood in winter and to access a cabin and other installations on his land.
By 2017, the relationship deteriorated. Bouchard placed “propriété privée – défense de passer” signs and ribbons across the trail that Villeneuve had constructed, blocking access. Villeneuve responded through counsel, asserting that he had acquired ownership by prescription acquisitive (10-year prescription) of the strip of land up to the ribbon/plaquage line, and demanding that Bouchard respect the line he said had been agreed years earlier.

The consensual boundary process and the surveyor’s reports

To resolve the dispute, the parties signed a formal “consentement au bornage et au choix d’un arpenteur-géomètre” in September 2018. They initially contemplated appointing Martineau, but because he had already worked for the plaintiffs and produced a certificate of staking, he proposed that another surveyor in the same firm, Pierre-Luc Pilote, conduct the bornage to avoid any appearance of conflict. Both sides agreed, and Pilote was instructed under the conventional bornage framework.
Pilote undertook extensive work: reviewing titles and historic survey documents, compiling old plans from public bodies and earlier surveyors, examining the primitive surveys for the sector, and conducting site visits where he heard testimony from the parties and noted physical evidence such as rubans (ribbons), old plaques and vestiges of fencing. On 14 February 2020 he completed a first boundary report, and later a complementary report, both notified to the parties.
On the strictly cadastral and title-based analysis, Pilote concluded that, based on the primitive surveys, chain of title and author-in-title documents, the boundary between Lots 59 and 60 corresponds to a straight line joining points D and E on his plan, which is the original lot line. However, he then went on to analyse the parties’ respective occupations of the land and opined that, by way of prescription acquisitive, Villeneuve had acquired a strip on the eastern side of Lot 59 up to a line marked by ribbons and vestiges (F–G, and then F–H–I–E in his later refinement). For the southern sector he found in favour of the defendant; for the northern sector he recognised coexistence and equivocal use and recommended maintaining the original line in favour of the plaintiffs.
Crucially, Pilote concluded that Villeneuve’s occupation from 2003–2004 onwards met the criteria for 10-year acquisitive prescription as of 2013–2014 for the disputed southern area: acts of possession that were, in his view, continuous, public, peaceful and non-equivocal, with no interruption in the prescriptive period and no legal proceedings cutting off the delay. He therefore recommended that the line of division be partially shifted to the east in the south, while maintaining the original lot line to the north.

Plaintiffs’ challenge to the surveyor’s mandate and findings

Bouchard and Ross brought an action to contest the boundary report and seek damages. They argued first that Pilote had exceeded the scope of the bornage mandate. In their view, the consent to bornage and the preceding correspondence between counsel showed that the parties intended only to locate the original cadastral line between Lots 59 and 60, not to submit a full acquisitive prescription dispute to an expert. They pointed out that neither party’s formal “exposé” filed in the bornage process alleged a detailed theory of prescription or marshalled comprehensive evidence on acts of possession and their timelines.
On that basis, the plaintiffs asked the Superior Court to declare the section of the report dealing with possession and prescription (section 6, pages 32-60 of Pilote’s report) inadmissible as ultra vires the mandate, to disregard those conclusions entirely, and to adopt instead Pilote’s own earlier conclusion from the foncière (title-based) analysis: that the dividing line between their properties is the original lot line D–E.
Subsidiairement, they argued that even if Pilote had jurisdiction to opine on prescription, his analysis was flawed. They attacked the factual assumptions and the law he applied, insisting that Villeneuve’s alleged possession was neither continuous nor non-equivocal. They stressed that:

• The trail construction stopped for several years (circa 2004/2005 to 2008) during which there was no wood-cutting or use, particularly while Villeneuve was seriously ill, amounting to a significant interruption in any alleged possession.
• The trail was an “acte de tolérance” allowed by the owners to facilitate winter logging, akin to the tolerated deviation around a rock face, not a manifestation of an adverse claim of ownership.
• Their own forestry use, maple tree tapping (érablière), wood-cutting and circulation on Lot 60, including in the contested strip, showed continuing acts of possession as titled owners, making any concurrent possession by Villeneuve legally equivocal.
  They also argued that Pilote effectively held them to the same evidentiary standard as a possessor attempting to acquire property by prescription—requiring them to prove their own possession to “keep” what they already owned by title—when, under Québec civil law, it is only the possessor who must demonstrate a possession utile that is clear, exclusive and non-equivocal. Acts of use by the titled owner, even if they would not themselves meet the bar to acquire property, can suffice to defeat a prescriptive claim by creating ambiguity.

Defendant’s defence and counter-claim

Villeneuve opposed the action in full and filed a reconventional demand. He argued that the consensus in the sector, as reflected in old cadastral plans and in local belief, had long placed chemin du Lac-Laurent entirely on Lot 59, with a strip of Lot 59 lying between the road and Lot 60. He invoked several historic plans annexed to earlier transactions and governmental acquisitions (including plans by surveyors Carmel Laberge, Serge Martineau, Louis Nadeau and the 1955 compilation of primitive surveys) to show that the first stretch of the road north of Route 172 was consistently drawn on Lot 59 and bounded by Lot 59 on both sides.
Villeneuve maintained that around 2004 he and Bouchard had effectively agreed on a boundary when Bouchard, as a forestry technician, placed blue ribbons marking what they understood to be the dividing line. He said he then built his forest trail entirely on Lot 59, apart from a short curve authorised over Lot 60 to avoid a rocky hill, and used it openly, peacefully and without challenge for more than ten years to reach the northern part of his lot, construct a cabin, cut wood and maintain winter trails.
According to Villeneuve, these acts of possession satisfied the conditions of article 2917 of the Civil Code of Québec for 10-year acquisitive prescription of an immovable: continuous, peaceful, public and non-equivocal possession. He asked the Court to recognise him as owner, by prescription, of the quadrilateral D-E-F-G shown in Pilote’s plan, and to give full effect to the surveyor’s recommendations on prescription for the southern section.

The legal framework: presumptive reliability of boundary reports and prescription acquisitive

The judge began by reaffirming the particular role of the arpenteur-géomètre in conventional bornage. A boundary report enjoys a presumption of reliability as to the surveyor’s technical findings, observations on the ground and measurement work, given the legislatively mandated investigative function, the sworn testimony he gathers and his duty to respect natural justice. However, this presumption can be rebutted, and the Court remains the ultimate arbiter on both law and the appreciation of evidence. The surveyor’s legal conclusions—especially on prescription acquisitive—are fully reviewable.
On prescription acquisitive, the judgment surveyed recent Court of Appeal case law and leading doctrine. To allow a possessor to acquire ownership by prescription, his possession must be utile: continuous, peaceful, public and non-equivocal. Any “vice” (discontinuity, violence, secrecy or equivocity) does not extinguish possession but deprives it of legal effect for prescription.
A central theme in the reasoning is the requirement that the possession be non-equivocal and, in practical terms, exclusive. Where both a titled owner and a third party perform acts of possession on the same land over time, jurisprudence and doctrine tend to deny any useful possession for prescription, because it becomes impossible to clearly identify who is acting as true owner. Courts must be cautious not to “dépouiller facilement un propriétaire de son héritage”; thus, ambiguous acts are interpreted in favour of preserving the registered owner’s rights.

Application of the law to the evidence

On the cadastral and title analysis, the Court accepted Pilote’s work. It found his examination of the chain of title, primitive surveys and governmental plans to be precise and convincing. Accordingly, it upheld his conclusion that, purely on the basis of title and historic surveys, the legal boundary between Lots 59 and 60 is the original lot line running between points D and E as shown on his plan.
Where the Court diverged sharply from Pilote is on his treatment of the southern sector and the conclusion that Villeneuve had acquired that strip of Lot 60 by prescription. Assessing the live testimony of Bouchard, his brother Gilles and Villeneuve, as well as the documentary and photographic record, the judge drew several key inferences:

• The plaintiffs and other users regularly hunted, harvested mushrooms, walked and conducted forestry and maple-syrup activities on Lot 60, including in the disputed area, and these acts of use were sufficient to preserve their status as possessors in title and to render any concurrent possession by Villeneuve equivocal.
• The trail that Villeneuve built to bypass the rocky outcrop was done with Bouchard’s express permission, specifically as a practical arrangement to allow winter wood extraction. Such a tolerated, consensual use cannot serve as the foundation for acquisitive prescription, which requires a possession exercised “à titre de propriétaire,” not by licence.
• Villeneuve’s serious illness between around 2004/2005 and 2008, combined with aerial photographs showing no logging activity in 2007, confirmed a significant interruption in any intensive use of the trail and surrounding area. This break defeated the requirement of a continuous possession over the ten-year period.
• There was no exclusive use of the terrain: winter sports enthusiasts, skiers and snowshoers used the area; Bouchard and Ross themselves were present and active; and no effective measures such as fencing, gates or clear signage were installed by Villeneuve to exclude others or to signal a claim of ownership beyond his title.
  The Court criticised Pilote for effectively imposing on Bouchard and Ross the same standard of proof as on Villeneuve, as if the registered owners also had to demonstrate a non-equivocal possession to avoid losing their land. Under Québec law, the owners retain their rights unless the possessor meets the strict criteria of acquisitive prescription; even modest acts by the owner that show continued assertion of ownership can be enough to render a third party’s possession equivocal and therefore legally useless.

Findings on the surveyor’s mandate and the evidentiary record

The Court did not need to declare the prescription section of the report ultra vires or void in its entirety. Instead, it distinguished between Pilote’s technical and title-based conclusions (which it accepted) and his analysis of prescription acquisitive (which it rejected in part).
For the boundary line itself, the judge adopted Pilote’s conclusion from the foncière analysis: the dividing line is the original lot boundary between Lots 59 and 60, illustrated by points D and E on the 23 February 2024 expert report and plan. This line is to be materialised on the ground by boundary markers (bornes) and formalised in a procès-verbal d’abornement, all to be registered in the land registry.
As to prescription, the Court set aside Pilote’s conclusion in favour of Villeneuve for the southern segment. In light of the jurisprudential approach to equivocal possession and concurrent use, it held that the defendant’s acts, even cumulatively, did not meet the legal thresholds. His use was sporadic, interrupted and shared with the titled owners and other users, and in crucial respects derived from the plaintiffs’ tolerance. Thus, Villeneuve did not acquire any part of Lot 60 by 10-year acquisitive prescription, and his reconventional demand for a declaration of ownership was dismissed.

Costs, expert fees and financial consequences

The convention de bornage, entered into at the outset, provided that the plaintiffs on one hand and the defendant on the other would each bear half of the surveyor’s fees and related expenses. Bouchard and Ross paid their share. Villeneuve, on legal advice, withheld payment of his portion to the surveying firm Girard Tremblay Gilbert Inc. The Court considered this refusal a breach of the agreed cost-sharing mechanism, noting that the survey and reports—although partially rejected as to prescription—were useful to both sides and to the Court in resolving the dispute.
The judge therefore ordered that Villeneuve must pay half of the firm’s fees and expenses, as originally agreed, and further imposed the high contractual interest rate of 24% per year on those unpaid invoices, together with the additional indemnity provided by article 1619 of the Civil Code of Québec, calculated from the 31st day following each invoice date. The Court declined to hold the parties solidarily liable under article 233 of the Code of Civil Procedure, opting instead to enforce the contractual sharing.
Regarding litigation costs, the Court ordered judicial costs (frais de justice) against Villeneuve as the unsuccessful party, while specifying that the surveyor’s fees dealt with in the order above are to be shared equally between the parties. In addition, the plaintiffs’ separate claims for compensatory and punitive damages for tree cutting and related works were severed and left to be addressed in a later phase, once the boundary dispute was definitively settled.

Outcome and significance

In the operative part of the judgment, the Superior Court:

• Allows the plaintiffs’ action contesting the boundary report.
• Rejects Villeneuve’s defence and reconventional demand for acquisition of ownership by 10-year prescription.
• Determines that the legal boundary between the immovables, identified in the judgment by their modern lot numbers, is the line D–E shown on the 23 February 2024 expert report and plan.
• Orders the surveying firm to place boundary markers along that D–E line, draw up a procès-verbal d’abornement, and register both that instrument and the judgment in the land registry.
• Requires each party to bear the costs of the abornement and procès-verbal in proportion to the length of boundary on their respective properties.
• Orders Villeneuve to pay half of the surveyor’s fees and legal costs of the firm, with 24% annual interest and the statutory additional indemnity, and condemns him to pay court costs, excluding the already shared expert fees.
  There is no discussion in this case of any insurance policy or specific contractual policy terms; the central legal instruments are titles of ownership, cadastral descriptions, the convention de bornage and the Civil Code provisions on prescription acquisitive and obligations.
  Overall, the successful parties are the plaintiffs, Bouchard and Ross, who obtain judicial confirmation of the original lot line D–E as the true boundary and defeat Villeneuve’s prescription claim. The Court also orders Villeneuve to pay half of the surveyor’s outstanding fees, with substantial contractual interest and statutory indemnity, and to bear court costs, but the judgment does not state the exact monetary amounts of those invoices or the quantified costs. As a result, while it is clear that the financial consequences fall on the defendant, the total amount ordered in their favour cannot be determined from the text of this decision alone.