What an easement search by address can and cannot show
An easement is a recorded right for someone else to use part of your land for a defined purpose: a power line, a sewer main, a drainage channel, a shared driveway. It runs with the land, so it survives every sale until it is released. Searching by address maps the corridors a county publishes; the sections below explain what that covers and what it leaves out.
Easements that appear on public county maps
Counties that publish a geographic easement layer almost always map the corridors they or a utility maintain, because those are the ones the county needs for its own engineering work.
- Utility easements. Strips reserved for electric, gas, water, sewer, telephone and cable. In a platted subdivision these typically run five to fifteen feet along rear and side lot lines.
- Drainage and stormwater easements. Channels, swales and detention areas. These frequently prohibit fill, fences and structures outright, because blocking them floods a neighbor.
- Road rights of way. The public strip that carries the street, usually wider than the pavement. The grass strip and sidewalk in front of a house are often inside it, not on the lot.
- Transmission line corridors. Wide, separately recorded easements for high-voltage lines, with strict height and vegetation restrictions.
- Sidewalk, sewer and pedestrian access easements, where a county maps them separately.
Easements a map will not show you
These exist in the written record, in a court decision, or in long use, with no coordinates attached to them. No address search of any kind will draw them, and any tool claiming otherwise is guessing.
- Private access and driveway easements between neighbors, recorded as a deed with a written description only.
- Prescriptive easements, earned through long open use without permission, which exist only once a court says so.
- Easements by necessity, implied when a parcel would otherwise be landlocked.
- Conservation easements held by a land trust, which restrict development rather than granting passage.
- Older recorded easements written in general terms, such as a blanket utility right across the whole parcel, with no defined strip.
- Anything in an unrecorded agreement, which may still bind parties who knew about it.
Reading a corridor on the map
A corridor drawn on a county map is a digitized approximation. It was traced from plats and engineering drawings to a tolerance suitable for planning, not for construction. Treat the drawn edge as an indication of where to look, never as the boundary itself.
Widths are shown only when the county publishes them. A ten-foot utility easement is measured from a described line in the recording document, and the position of that line on the ground is fixed by surveyed monuments, not by the map.
Before you build, three steps settle it: read the recorded document behind the corridor, have a licensed surveyor stake the easement line, and call 811 so the utilities mark their buried facilities. The first two answer the legal question; the third keeps you from hitting a gas main.
Restrictions that usually travel with an easement
The recorded document controls, and its wording varies, but a few patterns are near universal. Permanent structures inside a utility or drainage easement are almost always prohibited: sheds, garages, room additions, pools, decks on footings and retaining walls. Fences are commonly allowed but removable at the owner's expense when the utility needs access, which means a utility can lawfully take out a fence and leave you the bill.
Trees and deep-rooted landscaping are typically restricted over buried lines and under overhead conductors, and a utility generally may trim or remove vegetation inside its corridor without your consent. Grading, filling and paving are usually limited inside a drainage easement, because changing the flow moves water onto someone else.
Setback lines are a separate thing and are easy to confuse with easements. A setback is a zoning rule about how close to a lot line you may build. An easement is a recorded property right belonging to someone else. A lot can be constrained by both, and they rarely align.
Common questions
- Can I build a shed or fence on an easement?
- A permanent structure such as a shed, garage or pool is almost always prohibited inside a utility or drainage easement. A fence is commonly permitted but removable at your cost when the holder needs access. The recorded easement document sets the actual terms, and your local building department may apply its own rules on top.
- Who is responsible for maintaining an easement area?
- Typically the holder maintains its own facilities and the owner maintains the surface, such as mowing grass. Shared driveway easements often specify a cost split; when they are silent, state law generally requires the users who benefit to contribute in proportion to their use.
- Can an easement be removed?
- Yes, but rarely easily. The usual route is a recorded release from the holder, which a utility will grant only if the corridor is genuinely unnecessary. Easements can also end by merger when one owner acquires both parcels, by express expiration, or by abandonment shown through clear evidence of intent to give up the right.
- Does an easement reduce my property value?
- It depends on placement. A standard rear-lot utility strip usually has little effect. A wide transmission corridor, a drainage channel through a buildable area, or a shared driveway across the front yard can measurably reduce value because they remove usable or buildable land.
- How do I find the recorded easement document itself?
- Search the county recorder's grantor and grantee index using the parcel number and the owner names in the chain of title, looking for instruments labeled easement, right of way or grant of easement. If the legal description cites a plat book and page, pull that plat as well, since most residential easements are drawn on it.
- Is an easement search the same as a title search?
- No. A map search shows corridors a county chose to publish. A title search examines the recorded chain of title and produces Schedule B, which lists every recorded easement and exception affecting the parcel. Schedule B is the authoritative list; a map is a picture of part of it.