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

20 years of open, notorious, continuous and adverse use is the period generally applied in Virginia, commonly cited to Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-236; common law prescription. The clock only runs while the use is visible and without the owner's permission; written permission restarts it.

Can someone take ownership of my land in Virginia, not just a right to cross it?

A prescriptive easement only creates a right of use after 20 years. You keep title. Ownership claims run through Virginia's separate adverse possession rules, which require possession of the strip itself rather than a shared use of it.

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

Twenty years of open, visible, continuous, adverse use, shown by clear and convincing evidence. Long use raises a presumption of a grant that the owner must rebut.

Where are easements recorded in Virginia?

Easements are recorded at the county level. For the Virginia counties we cover that means Fairfax County Circuit Court, Land Records Division. 1 of those counties publish a free public parcel viewer you can check before you order title work.

Does a Virginia 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 20 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.

What have Virginia courts paid landowners for an easement?

Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC v. 8.37 Acres of Land (Terry) (2024) is one published example: Permanent and temporary natural-gas pipeline easements totaling 8.37 acres across a 560-acre farm. The total award was $523,327.

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Virginia prescriptive easement law

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

Virginia records with the Clerk of the Circuit Court. Set by statute at Va. Code § 17.1-275, which fixes the clerk's recording and indexing fees by page count, on top of applicable recordation taxes.

Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-236; common law prescription

Prescriptive period

20 years

What actually decides a claim here

Twenty years of open, visible, continuous, adverse use, shown by clear and convincing evidence.
Long use raises a presumption of a grant that the owner must rebut.

The rule that matters most

Virginia requires clear and convincing evidence for a prescriptive easement, and long, unopposed use of a shared driveway or path raises a rebuttable presumption of a right that the landowner must affirmatively overcome, rather than leaving the claimant to keep reproving hostility.

Virginia recognizes prescriptive easements after twenty years of adverse, exclusive, continuous, and uninterrupted use, made with the knowledge and acquiescence of the servient owner. Virginia's courts have held that once a claimant shows use meeting those elements for the full period, a presumption arises that the use was under a claim of right, shifting the burden to the landowner to produce evidence that it was permissive instead. Exclusivity is treated seriously in Virginia: where a roadway has been used in common with the general public rather than distinctly by the claimant for a private purpose, courts have found the exclusivity element lacking and denied the private easement.

What a claimant must prove in Virginia

The claimant must prove each element, including adversity, exclusivity, continuity, and the owner's knowledge and acquiescence, by clear and convincing evidence. Once that showing is made for the full twenty years, Virginia law presumes the use was under a claim of right, and the servient owner bears the burden of rebutting that presumption with evidence of permission.

Adverse use under a claim of right

The use must be inconsistent with the owner's title rather than a favor the owner could withdraw, and it must be exercised as though the claimant had a right to it.

Exclusive use

The claimant's use must be distinguishable from the same casual use enjoyed by the general public; sharing an access route with the public at large can defeat a private prescriptive claim.

Continuous and uninterrupted use for twenty years

The use must persist in the manner ordinary for the easement claimed throughout the full statutory period without an effective interruption.

Knowledge and acquiescence of the owner

The servient owner must have known, or reasonably should have known, of the use and failed to object during the period, which supports the presumption of a claim of right.

What can break the claim

Use shared with the general public in common with the claimant's own use can defeat the exclusivity element required for a private prescriptive easement, even when the claimant also personally used the route for decades.
A claimant's use for logging, timbering, or similarly limited purposes may not give the servient owner adequate notice of an adverse property claim, weakening the case even after many years.
Permission from a prior owner, once shown, can require the claimant to demonstrate that the character of the use later changed to adverse and then continued for a fresh twenty-year period.
Proposing to change the width, route, or manner of an established prescriptive easement generally requires showing the change places no additional burden on the servient estate.

Worked homeowner example

A Roanoke-area farm road serving two adjoining tracts

Facts: Two neighboring farm families have each driven the same rural dirt road across a third owner's tract for over twenty years to reach their own properties, without ever asking permission or facing any objection.

How the rule applies: Twenty years of open use with no objection can support Virginia's presumption of a claim of right, shifting the burden to the servient owner to show permission. The families should also be prepared to show the use was exclusive to those benefiting from it, rather than indistinguishable from broader public travel over the same road, since Virginia treats that distinction as decisive.

Practical next step: Document who specifically used the road and for what purposes, gather any evidence about whether the general public also used it, and have a survey prepared showing the road's consistent route over the full period.

A published Virginia example

McNeil v. Kingrey (237 Va. 400, 377 S.E.2d 430 (1989))

Several claimants sought to establish prescriptive rights of way over a rural dirt road crossing an estate's land near Roanoke, and the case also addressed who bears the burden of showing a proposed change to a prescriptive route would not add an additional burden on the servient land.

Outcome: The Supreme Court of Virginia examined whether each claimant had met the burden of proving the elements of a prescriptive easement by clear and convincing evidence, and addressed how Virginia allocates the burden when a claimant seeks to change the nature or location of previously prescribed use.

Why it matters: Virginia's clear-and-convincing standard and its rules about exclusivity and permissible changes to an established route mean prescriptive-easement litigation often turns on very specific facts about each claimant's individual use.

Read the published decision

The Virginia law in its own words

Virginia does not spell the prescriptive-easement period out in a single statute. The 20-year clock comes from decided cases reading Pettus v. Keeling, 232 Va. 483 (1987), the elements a prescriptive claim must prove over Virginia's twenty-year period, which means the elements a judge will hold you to are found in the opinions rather than in the code book.

“(i) adverse; (ii) under a claim of right; (iii) exclusive; (iv) continuous and uninterrupted; and (v) with the knowledge and acquiescence of the owners of the land over which it passes.”
Pettus v. Keeling, 232 Va. 483 (1987), the elements a prescriptive claim must prove over Virginia's twenty-year period · checked 2026-09-07

Open Pettus v. Keeling, 232 Va. 483 (1987), the elements a prescriptive claim must prove over Virginia's twenty-year period

Recording an easement in Virginia

Virginia records at the Clerk of the Circuit Court. Set by statute at Va. Code § 17.1-275, which fixes the clerk's recording and indexing fees by page count, on top of applicable recordation taxes. See the fee authority.

Virginia easements are recorded with the clerk of the circuit court in the city or county where the land is located. The instrument should include a full legal description of both the benefited and burdened parcels and be checked against the clerk's current recording, formatting, and fee requirements, since Virginia's independent cities each maintain their own circuit court clerk's land records separate from the surrounding county.

Primary sources for this guide

Va. Code Ann. § 8.01-236 - Virginia limitations period underlying prescription
Va. Code Ann. § 17.1-227 - Virginia circuit court clerk recording duties

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 Virginia compares with the rest of the country

Virginia runs a longer clock than most of the country: 20 years against a 15-year national median, so use that started recently is unlikely to have ripened into a prescriptive right yet. 21 states in total use a 20-year period. Nationally the periods run from 5 to 30 years, and 27 states are quicker than Virginia.

What Virginia courts have awarded

Published Virginia 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.

Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC v. 8.37 Acres of Land (Terry) (2024)
Permanent and temporary natural-gas pipeline easements totaling 8.37 acres across a 560-acre farm
Total: $523,327.
The appeals court restored the jury's full $523,327 award after the trial judge had cut it in half, holding the jury was entitled to credit the landowner's appraiser.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit · Read the decision

Easements you actually see on Virginia title work

Across the Virginia counties we publish guides for, these are the exceptions that show up most often in Schedule B: Dominion Energy transmission and distribution easements, Resource protection area restrictions near streams, Sanitary sewer easements held by the county, Stormwater management and best management practice easements. 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 Virginia

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 Virginia 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 Virginia easement records and parcel GIS sources

Virginia easement questions

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

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.