How long does it take to create a prescriptive easement in Louisiana?

30 years of open, notorious, continuous and adverse use is the period generally applied in Louisiana, commonly cited to La. Civ. Code arts. 740-742, 3486. The clock only runs while the use is visible and without the owner's permission; written permission restarts it.

Is adverse possession the same as a prescriptive easement in Louisiana?

No. A prescriptive easement gives someone the right to keep using part of your land after 30 years; adverse possession transfers ownership outright and runs on a 10-year clock in Louisiana. A driveway claim is almost always the first; a fenced-in strip of yard can become the second.

What has to be proven for an easement claim in Louisiana?

Louisiana uses servitudes and acquisitive prescription: thirty years without title, or ten years in good faith with just title. Only apparent and continuous servitudes, visible works such as a road or a drain, can be acquired by prescription.

Where are easements recorded in Louisiana?

Easements are recorded at the county level. For the Louisiana counties we cover that means East Baton Rouge Parish Clerk of Court. 1 of those counties publish a free public parcel viewer you can check before you order title work.

Does a Louisiana title commitment list every easement on the property?

Schedule B lists the recorded exceptions the title company found, which covers most utility, access and drainage easements. It will not show a prescriptive easement created by 30 years of use with nothing on paper, and it rarely tells you where on the lot the easement actually sits. That takes the recorded instrument plus a survey.

Which Louisiana law actually sets the clock?

La. Civ. Code art. 742 (acquisitive prescription of servitudes). We link the official text rather than quote it, because we could not confirm a clean verbatim sentence from a free official source.

What have Louisiana courts paid landowners for an easement?

Southwest Louisiana Electric Membership Corp. v. Beck (1974) is one published example: 100-foot-wide H-frame transmission servitude across a 14.74-acre tract; 0.946 acres taken, including a 0.676-acre pocket left isolated. The total award was $8,268, of which $5,268 was damage to the land left over rather than the strip itself. We summarize 6 Louisiana decisions with stated dollar figures on the valuation calculator.

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Louisiana prescriptive easement law

Q: What does it cost to record an easement in Louisiana?

Louisiana records with the Clerk of Court, as ex officio recorder, in Orleans Parish, the Register of Conveyances. Set by statute at La. R.S. 13:844 on a tiered page-count basis rather than a per-page rate: broadly $100 for a document of 1–5 pages, more for longer instruments.

La. Civ. Code arts. 740-742, 3486

Prescriptive period

30 years

Adverse possession

10 years

What actually decides a claim here

Louisiana uses servitudes and acquisitive prescription: thirty years without title, or ten years in good faith with just title.
Only apparent and continuous servitudes, visible works such as a road or a drain, can be acquired by prescription.

The rule that matters most

Louisiana is a civil-law state that does not recognize common-law prescriptive easements at all; instead, an apparent predial servitude of passage can be acquired through the Civil Code's acquisitive prescription, which runs thirty years without title or ten years with good faith and just title.

Louisiana's property law descends from the Civil Code rather than the common law, so the right that plays the role of a prescriptive easement in other states is called a predial servitude, and only an apparent servitude, meaning one revealed by visible works such as a roadway, power line, or ditch, can be acquired by acquisitive prescription under Civil Code article 740. Article 742 sets the two paths: ten years of peaceable, uninterrupted possession of the right in good faith and under just title, or thirty years of uninterrupted possession without title or good faith at all. Non-apparent servitudes, those without visible outward signs, cannot be acquired by prescription in Louisiana no matter how long the use continues, which is a sharp departure from the common-law rule followed by most other states. Louisiana courts have also emphasized that possession for acquisitive prescription must be as owner of the servitude, not merely tolerated use permitted by an accommodating neighbor.

What a claimant must prove in Louisiana

The party asserting acquisitive prescription of a predial servitude must prove peaceable and uninterrupted possession for the applicable period, and Louisiana courts require that possession be exercised as an owner of the servitude right, not as a precarious possessor holding merely by another's leave. Louisiana courts have scrutinized claims closely where the parties' history includes an owner's request to relocate or otherwise limit the passage, since accommodating a landowner's request can undercut the adverse character of the possession.

An apparent servitude

The right must be revealed by visible, outward works, such as a graded road, gate, culvert, or utility line; a purely intangible or undisclosed use of the land cannot be acquired by prescription under Louisiana's Civil Code.

Possession as owner of the servitude

The claimant must possess the right of passage the way an owner would, rather than as someone using the route with the landowner's continuing indulgence.

Peaceable and uninterrupted possession

The use must continue without a legally significant interruption, such as the landowner's successful objection or the claimant's abandonment, for the entire prescriptive period.

Ten years with just title and good faith, or thirty years without

A claimant with a recorded but legally deficient title document and a good-faith belief in its validity can prescribe in ten years; everyone else must show thirty years of qualifying possession.

What can break the claim

Louisiana claimants sometimes plead 'adverse possession' or 'prescriptive easement' using common-law terminology that does not match the Civil Code's acquisitive-prescription framework for predial servitudes, which can confuse the pleadings and the proof needed.
Accommodating a landowner's request to move or limit a right of passage, even briefly, has been treated by Louisiana courts as inconsistent with possessing the servitude as an owner, which can defeat the whole thirty-year claim.
A servitude that is not apparent, meaning it has no visible sign on the ground, cannot be acquired by prescription in Louisiana regardless of how long it has been used.
Louisiana's civil-law vocabulary differs from every neighboring state's common-law terms, so title opinions and surveys drafted using out-of-state templates can misstate the applicable Louisiana doctrine.

Worked homeowner example

A rice-farm right of way moved once by request

Facts: A farmer's family has crossed a neighboring tract to reach rice fields since the 1970s using a visible gravel lane. In the late 1980s, the neighboring owner asked the family to shift the lane about 200 feet, and the family complied and kept farming.

How the rule applies: The gravel lane is apparent, which satisfies the first requirement, but Louisiana courts have treated a landowner's request to relocate the passage, and the claimant's compliance with it, as evidence the possession was not exercised as an owner of the servitude. That pattern can prevent the thirty-year period from ever completing, even though decades of physical use have occurred.

Practical next step: Review any correspondence or agreements from the relocation, and consult about whether the facts more closely resemble tolerated, permissive use than possession as owner, since that distinction has proven decisive in comparable Louisiana disputes.

A published Louisiana example

Boudreaux v. Cummings (167 So. 3d 559 (La. 2015))

A farmer whose family had used a gated right of way across a neighboring tract since 1948 sued for recognition of a predial servitude by acquisitive prescription after the current owner locked the gate in 2012. In 1969, a prior owner had asked the farmer's family to move the right of way, and the family complied and continued using the relocated route.

Outcome: The Louisiana Supreme Court held that the farmer failed to establish acquisitive prescription because the 1969 relocation at the landowner's request showed the family's possession was not as an owner of the servitude, but rather a use permitted and controlled by the landowner, interrupting the character of possession needed for prescription.

Why it matters: Louisiana's civil-law framework asks whether the claimant possessed the right of passage as its own owner; complying with a landowner's request to move or limit the route can be fatal even after decades of continuous physical use.

Read the published decision

The Louisiana law in its own words

Louisiana writes the rule into its code at La. Civ. Code art. 742 (acquisitive prescription of servitudes). Read the operative sentence closely: the language a court applies is the statutory language, not a summary of it, and small phrases such as "under a claim of right" or "paid all the taxes" decide real cases.

We link La. Civ. Code art. 742 (acquisitive prescription of servitudes) rather than quoting it, because we could not confirm a clean verbatim sentence from a free official source. Read it at the link below before you rely on the wording.

Open La. Civ. Code art. 742 (acquisitive prescription of servitudes)

Recording an easement in Louisiana

Louisiana records at the Clerk of Court, as ex officio recorder, in Orleans Parish, the Register of Conveyances. Set by statute at La. R.S. 13:844 on a tiered page-count basis rather than a per-page rate: broadly $100 for a document of 1–5 pages, more for longer instruments. See the fee authority.

Louisiana does not use county recorders; conveyances and servitude agreements are filed with the clerk of court in the parish where the immovable property is located, except in Orleans Parish, where the Register of Conveyances performs that function. A written servitude agreement should include a complete legal description of both estates and be checked against the parish clerk's or register's current indexing and fee requirements, since Louisiana's parish-based system differs from the county systems used elsewhere in the region.

Primary sources for this guide

La. Civ. Code arts. 740, 742 - Louisiana apparent servitudes and acquisitive prescription
La. Civ. Code arts. 3476, 3486 - Louisiana rules on possession for prescription

Need the document itself? Follow the step-by-step records walkthrough to pull the recorded easement on your parcel from free county, state, and federal sources.

How Louisiana compares with the rest of the country

Louisiana runs a longer clock than most of the country: 30 years against a 15-year national median, so use that started recently is unlikely to have ripened into a prescriptive right yet. No other state uses a 30-year period. It is unique to Louisiana. Nationally the periods run from 5 to 30 years, and 50 states are quicker than Louisiana.

What Louisiana courts have awarded

Published Louisiana decisions that put a dollar figure on an easement or right-of-way. The pattern worth noticing: the strip itself is often the smaller number.

Southwest Louisiana Electric Membership Corp. v. Beck (1974)
100-foot-wide H-frame transmission servitude across a 14.74-acre tract; 0.946 acres taken, including a 0.676-acre pocket left isolated
Strip itself: $3,000. Damage to the rest: $5,268. Total: $8,268.
The trial court awarded $3,000 for the land taken and $1,656 in severance damages for an isolated pocket; the court of appeal more than tripled the total severance award by adding $3,612 for the remainder of the tract, finding the nearby transmission line reduced its market value.
Louisiana Court of Appeal, Third Circuit · Read the decision
Gravity Drainage District No. 1 v. Key (Key parcel) (1958)
35-foot-wide drainage ditch servitude; 0.384 acres taken
Strip itself: $3,330. Damage to the rest: $6,588. Total: $13,518.
Industrial-zoned land was valued at $10,000 an acre, and the court added a separate $3,600 culvert allowance so the owner kept rail-spur access.
Supreme Court of Louisiana · Read the decision
Gravity Drainage District No. 1 v. Key (Moss parcel) (1958)
35-foot-wide drainage ditch servitude; 0.222 acres taken
Strip itself: $4,551. Damage to the rest: $5,416. Total: $13,567.
Same taking, different parcel: land here was worth $20,500 an acre, the remainder lost $4,000 an acre, and a $3,600 culvert allowance was again added.
Supreme Court of Louisiana · Read the decision
Coastal Transmission Corp. v. Lejeune (1962)
Gas pipeline servitude roughly 1,300 feet long and 10 to 30 feet wide, about 0.9 acres, across a 15-acre tract
Strip itself: $863. Damage to the rest: $717. Total: $2,709.
Land was valued at $1,000 an acre, and damage to the remainder was tied to the strip nearest the pipe rather than a flat percentage of the whole property, plus $1,128 for destroyed timber.
Louisiana Court of Appeal, Third Circuit · Read the decision
Southwest Louisiana Electric Membership Corp. v. Duhon (Duhon parcel) (1975)
100-foot-wide, 1,264-foot-long transmission servitude; 2.89 acres taken from a 21.97-acre tract
Strip itself: $8,780. Damage to the rest: $9,525. Total: $18,305.
The court accepted a graduated value -- full fee value for the road frontage, 80 percent for the rear -- and added $3,000 purely for the line's proximity to a house.
Louisiana Court of Appeal, Third Circuit · Read the decision
Southwest Louisiana Electric Membership Corp. v. Duhon (Broussard parcel) (1975)
Same transmission line; a 10-foot-wide, 0.045-acre sliver taken from an adjoining 23-acre tract
Strip itself: $108. Damage to the rest: $6,525. Total: $6,633.
A tiny strip produced a very large remainder award, because the line crossing the boundary undercut the neighbor's ability to subdivide.
Louisiana Court of Appeal, Third Circuit · Read the decision

Easements you actually see on Louisiana title work

Across the Louisiana counties we publish guides for, these are the exceptions that show up most often in Schedule B: Drainage servitudes along canals and coulees, Entergy Louisiana utility servitudes, Pipeline servitudes crossing the parish, Predial servitudes of passage serving enclosed estates. The recorded instrument controls the width and location. A plat note or a county parcel viewer is only a starting point.

County-by-county recording rules in Louisiana

Easements are recorded county by county, and the filing rules are set by the office that takes the document. Not by the state. Open a county to see who records there, how that office structures its fees, what makes a document get rejected, and where the free official index and parcel viewer live.

Look up Louisiana county records to jump straight to a county page with its recording rules, typical strip widths in feet, and the steps for disputing an easement.

Browse free Louisiana easement records and parcel GIS sources

Louisiana easement questions

Read the official Louisiana code Estimate the value impact Check a property in Louisiana

Common questions from homeowners

Related terms

prescriptive easement

easement by necessity

right of way

encroachment

General educational reference only. Prescription periods and their exceptions change, and several states set the period by case law rather than by statute. Read the linked official code and consult a licensed attorney in that state before relying on any of it.