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We're retirees who bought a granny flat to live near our daughter and save money

“After living in this granny flat for over a year and spending time with my children, there is nothing more I could have asked for.”

In April of 2020, my daughter, Caitlyn, was thinking about selling her home. She’s a teacher who lived in Smiths Falls with her three dogs; she wanted to get away and settle down on a larger rural property with some acreage. My husband, Gord, and I have lived on a 50-acre property in Lombardy, Ontario, for the past 40 years. Jokingly, Caitlyn suggested that Gord and I could apply for a land severance to create a separate lot for her to purchase. To her surprise, we were both on board.

Our initial plan was to sever the two acres of property that included our home and allow Caitlyn to build her own house on the remaining 48 acres, but after much correspondence with the Ministry of Transportation, we discovered that we couldn’t get a land severance. They suggested that we look into a garden suite or granny flat: a small home typically built in a backyard adjacent to the main home. At first, I wasn’t thrilled with the idea. I was under the impression—like a lot of people—that a granny flat is one step up from a trailer.

But within a few weeks, we started seeing the upsides. Gord and I were ready to downsize from our home on the property, which had become more laborious to maintain over the years. If Caitlyn took over our house, we could keep it in the family, and living in a granny flat near her also meant she could help us as we aged...

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