A man has been left furious as he can no longer access his lakefront cottage after his neighbour put up a fence around the home.
Sarfaraz Ali can now only access his property on Lake Erie, Ontario by boat and is embroiled in a major dispute with his neighbour, Oscar VanderHeide.
The erection of the fence, which Mr Ali says was put up with "no notice", has meant the private road which leads to Mr Ali's seasonal home, as well as two other cottages, is now inaccessible.
Mr VanderHeide put up the fence in February and as he owns the land the cottagers use to access their homes, he is legally allowed to do so.
"I’m not blocking the road. There’s no road. That’s my property," the disgruntled neighbour told local Canadian newspaper, The Hamilton Spectator, via The Sun.
Mr Ali owns the land his property sits on, as well as the small garden, while Mr VanderHeide owns the beach in front of the property and the land behind.
In an explanation, Mr VanderHeide said he built the fence to avoid being liable if anyone staying at the lakeside homes were to be injured on his land.
But Mr Ali and the owners of the two other homes can no longer access the holiday homes by road due to the fence blocking any entry and exit. This is despite the owners using the road for a number of years.
“There is no way we can have access to our home at all,” Mr Ali told The Spectator.
“All of a sudden it happened. We had no notice, nothing. If there’s any issue, they should give some notice and we can negotiate or something.”
Without a road, the only real means of accessing the property is by boat. Mr Ali has found there is a small gap in the fence that he can slither through to get to his three-bedroom home, but that also means crossing other neighbours' lawns. On the other side, the fence is inches from his porch.
Due to it being a civil matter between landowners the county council is unable to settle the dispute, which means Mr Ali and Mr VanderHeide are going to have to try and settle their differences themselves.
However, Mr VanderHeide has claimed his neighbour had been renting out the property as an Airbnb, describing recent months as "horrible".
Mr VanderHeide says he feels aggrieved Mr Ali, who claims he rented out the home to pay off the mortgage, advertised his beach as part of the listing.
“He’s never asked if he could use my beach or advertise my beach, and I just let it go. I’ve been as nice as I can be as a neighbour. But there’s always a limit," he said.
