# These Waterloo neighbours went to trial over a few inches of concrete. It cost them $150,000 in legal fees **By:** Bob Aaron **Source:** [Toronto Star](https://www.thestar.com/business/personal-finance/these-waterloo-neighbours-went-to-trial-over-a-few-inches-of-concrete-it-cost-them-150000-in-legal-fees/article_f1207b49-9a59-4faf-87af-bf18ad8bd6a8.html) --- When a neighbour dispute begins over inches, writes Bob Aaron, the lesson for homeowners is simple: get a survey, read it carefully and try hard not to turn those inches into miles. Opinion | These Waterloo neighbours went to trial over a few inches of concrete. It cost them $150,000 in legal fees Opinion Based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events When a neighbour dispute begins over inches, writes Bob Aaron, the lesson for homeowners is simple: get a survey, read it carefully and try hard not to turn those inches into miles. Dreamstime Bob Aaron is a Toronto real estate lawyer and a contributing columnist for the Star. He is also a member of the Home Construction Regulatory Authority Consumer Advisory Council. He can be reached at bob@aaron.ca A few inches of concrete can go a very long way. In Waterloo, they went all the way to a four-day Superior Court trial, complete with eight witnesses, photographs, videos, expert evidence, a land survey, claims for $220,000 in damages — and a judicial quotation from Shakespeare. Justice Michael Gibson opened his decision with a warning from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII: “Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.” That pretty much summed up the case. Annette and Michael Berryhill live in a house on Margaret Avenue South in Waterloo. Dennis Trendle and his partner, Doinita Roscanius, live next door. When inches become litigation For years, the two couples were friends. They socialized and enjoyed activities together. Then came the driveway. In 2003, Trendle had a small concrete extension pad poured beside his driveway. Nothing much happened for the next 16 years. But in 2019, the Berryhills became convinced that part of the concrete crossed the property line onto their land. The neighbours disagreed. Orange paint appeared. Lawyers became involved. By December 2021, the Berryhills had sued Trendle, seeking $70,000 in general damages, another $25,000 in special damages, injunctions against trespassing and a declaration concerning their title. Opinion Bob Aaron: Toronto condo corporation’s $324,000 fraud loss a warning to Ontario owners According to a notice to owners last month, it was the victim of a “sophisticated investment Trendle defended and counterclaimed. Roscanius commenced a second lawsuit against the Berryhills. Eventually the two actions were consolidated and tried together.  By the time everyone arrived in court for a four-day trial in June, the litigation had become vastly larger than the few inches of concrete that started it. Fortunately, part way through the trial the lawyers persuaded their clients to narrow the battlefield. The Berryhills abandoned everything except their $70,000 claim for damages for alleged loss of quiet enjoyment. Trendle and Roscanius abandoned most of their claims but maintained their position on the location of the boundary and sought $150,000 for an alleged reduction in the value of their home. The trial nevertheless required testimony from the four neighbours, two real estate agents, an Ontario land surveyor and a property valuation witness. The most important exhibit turned out to be something considerably less dramatic: an actual land survey. Van Harten Surveying had prepared a Surveyor’s Real Property Report in November 2020. It showed that the concrete pad did indeed cross the boundary, but only by a few inches. Trendle ultimately removed the offending concrete. That might have been the end of it. It wasn’t. The Berryhills argued that the encroachment and Trendle occasionally stepping into the space between the buildings amounted to nuisance and had seriously affected them mentally, physically and emotionally. The judge rejected the claim. The concrete encroachment was trivial, he ruled, as were Trendle’s momentary steps onto the neighbouring property. More pointedly, the judge found that the Berryhills themselves had behaved unreasonably. They refused to accept the survey and continued insisting on a property line of their own creation, at one point spraying orange lines which they maintained represented the boundary. Justice Gibson was particularly critical of Annette Berryhill, finding that her claim of emotional distress appeared to arise from what he called her “irrational obsession with the property line dispute.” Her $70,000 claim was dismissed. The neighbours on the other side did no better. Roscanius claimed $150,000 on the theory that the feud had reduced the value of her property but there was no reliable way to prove that any decline was caused by the Berryhills. That claim was dismissed too. The judge did provide one useful piece of closure: he declared that the legal boundary is exactly where the 2020 survey says it is. And after seven years of hostilities, two lawsuits and four days of trial, nobody received damages. Each side was ordered to pay their own legal bill. Michael Berryhill told me by phone last week that he estimates the combined legal fees incurred by both sides was “not far off” from $150,000. He added that he was unhappy about having to pay all of his own legal fees.  It is difficult to imagine a more expensive way of discovering that a survey line is a survey line. Steve Gadbois, who acted for Trendle and Roscanius, was unable to provide his clients’ comments on the case by publication deadline.  The lesson for homeowners is simple. When a neighbour dispute begins over inches, get a survey, read it carefully and try very hard not to turn those inches into miles. Because once neighbourly irritation becomes litigation, Shakespeare’s warning is as relevant in Waterloo in 2026 as it was four centuries ago. The furnace you light for your neighbour may wind up burning your own wallet. He was waiting for his son to return from the USS Lincoln. 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