By necessity easement

Easement by necessity

An easement by necessity is access a court implies — not one anybody recorded — when a parcel was cut off from a public road by the same owner who once held both pieces.

Also searched as: landlocked property access, way of necessity.

Created by: Court order, not a signed grant
Core test: Common ownership, severance, necessity at severance
Standard: Strict necessity in some states, reasonable necessity in others
Ends when: The necessity ends, or the parcels merge

What it is

An easement by necessity is a remedy for landlocked land. Courts imply it because the law prefers usable property over stranded property, and because the parties to the original split almost certainly intended access even though nobody wrote it down.

Nearly every state requires the same core elements: the burdened and benefited parcels were once under common ownership, that ownership was severed by a conveyance, and the necessity for access arose at the moment of severance. Necessity created later — a bridge washes out, a public road is vacated — generally does not qualify, which surprises owners who assume any landlocked parcel gets a route.

How strict the necessity must be varies by state. Some require strict necessity, meaning no legal access at all; others accept reasonable necessity, where an existing route is impractical rather than nonexistent. Access that is legally available but physically difficult — a steep gully, a seasonal ford — is exactly where those two standards produce different outcomes.

How it shows up in the records

Rarely in the title commitment, because nothing was recorded. It surfaces as a title objection or an access exception instead.
In a deed history: a parent tract split into pieces, one of which no longer touches a road.
In a court judgment or a settlement deed, once the easement has been established and recorded.
As a lender or insurer requirement — many will not close on a parcel without legal access confirmed in writing.

If you want to build

Until a route is established and recorded, building permits are frequently refused for lack of legal access.
Courts set the location of an implied route, and they usually pick the least burdensome path for the servient owner, not the most convenient one for the holder.
The scope tends to be limited to the necessity: access for a residence, not for logging trucks or a quarry, unless the original use justified it.
Utility installation is not automatically included. Many states treat utility access as a separate question from vehicular access.

If you are buying

Never buy a landlocked parcel on the assumption a necessity easement exists. Verify the common-ownership history first, in the records, before the contract goes hard.
Ask what the seller has actually been using and under what claim. A neighbor's permission is a license, revocable at will, not an easement.
Budget for the establishment cost — a title search back to the severance deed, a survey, and often a quiet-title action.
Get the resulting route recorded with a legal description. An unrecorded court right is a problem you pass to the next buyer.

What the recorded wording looks like

Language from a judgment establishing a way of necessity

The Court finds that Parcel B was severed from the common parent tract by deed recorded at Book 412, Page 88, that Parcel B has no other legal access to a public way, and that a way of necessity therefore exists. The Court establishes a thirty (30) foot access easement along the northerly boundary of Parcel A as depicted on the survey admitted as Exhibit 3, for ingress, egress and regress serving one single-family residence.

What each phrase actually does

“severed from the common parent tract”: The unity-then-severance element. Without it there is no easement by necessity, however landlocked the parcel is.
“no other legal access”: The strict-necessity standard. Under a reasonable-necessity standard, an impractical route can still support the claim.
“along the northerly boundary”: The court chooses a location, typically the one that burdens the servient parcel least.
“serving one single-family residence”: Scope is tied to the necessity. Intensifying use later can require going back to court.

This is an illustrative example of common wording, not a copy of any particular recorded document. Your own grant controls. Read a full document line by line.

How this easement ends

The necessity ends: a new public road or a purchased alternative route reaches the parcel, and in most states the implied easement extinguishes with it.
Merger, when the landlocked parcel and the burdened parcel come back under one owner.
A recorded release once an express easement replaces the implied one.
Replacement by agreement — the parties record a described express easement, which is the outcome worth pushing for in every negotiation.

Common questions

Is a landlocked parcel automatically entitled to access?

No. The parcel must trace back to a common owner who severed it and created the landlock. A tract that was landlocked from the start, or landlocked by an event after severance, generally does not qualify, and the owner has to negotiate an express easement instead.

Who chooses where the route goes?

The servient owner often gets the first say, and if the parties cannot agree the court fixes it. Courts favor an existing lane or a boundary line over a route that cuts a working parcel in half.

Do I have to pay for a way of necessity?

Usually there is no purchase price, because the easement is implied from the original transaction rather than bought. Costs still land on the holder: the litigation, the survey, and typically construction and maintenance of the route.

How is this different from an easement by prescription?

Necessity is implied from a broken chain of access at the moment of severance. Prescription is earned by years of open, continuous use without permission. Necessity does not require any past use at all; prescription requires nothing but it.

Check your own property

Upload a title commitment and we will translate the Schedule B exceptions into plain English, or estimate what a corridor takes from the property's value.

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Related types

Terms used on this page

How this page is sourced

Last reviewed September 9, 2026 by the Easements.com editorial team. Written from state statutes, county recorder publications, and standard appraisal practice. Every state-specific figure links to a free official source you can open yourself.

Cornell LII — easement by necessity
National Agricultural Law Center — access to landlocked land — State-by-state research on rural access disputes.

General information, not legal advice. Read our editorial standards or report a correction.

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.