Easement in gross
An easement in gross belongs to a person or a company rather than to a neighboring parcel — the category most utility, pipeline and billboard easements fall into.
Also searched as: commercial easement in gross, personal easement.
- Benefited parcel
- None — the holder is a person or company
- Transferable
- Yes if commercial, generally no if personal
- Common holders
- Utilities, pipelines, railroads, carriers, billboard firms
- Watch for
- Exclusive rights and multi-line corridor clauses
What it is
An easement in gross has a burdened parcel but no benefited parcel. The right belongs to the holder directly: an electric cooperative, a pipeline operator, a railroad, a cell carrier, a billboard company, or occasionally an individual granted a personal right such as fishing access.
The law splits these into two groups that behave very differently. Commercial easements in gross — utility lines, pipelines, rail corridors — are freely transferable and are treated much like business assets; they get bought, sold and consolidated. Personal easements in gross are generally not transferable and end with the holder's death.
Because there is no dominant estate, tracing the current holder can be genuinely hard. A grant to a 1950s telephone cooperative may now sit with a national carrier after four corporate transactions, none of which necessarily produced a recorded assignment in your county.
How it shows up in the records
- A Schedule B exception naming a company rather than an adjoining lot.
- A recorded easement deed with a corridor description but no reference to any benefited land.
- A memorandum of easement or memorandum of lease, used to record a short summary while keeping commercial terms private.
- Physical clues: pipeline markers, rail ballast, cell compounds, guy anchors, and billboard footings.
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If you want to build
- Corridor widths are frequently large — a pipeline easement of 50 feet or more can dominate a small parcel's buildable area.
- Pipeline and transmission holders typically bar structures, deep excavation and heavy equipment crossings without a written crossing permit.
- Because the holder may be a distant corporation, getting approval for a driveway crossing or a fence takes lead time; build that into project schedules.
- Depth and cover requirements can make landscaping and grading changes a compliance issue, not just an aesthetic choice.
If you are buying
- Identify the current holder before closing, not after. Ask the title company for the assignment chain.
- Read whether the grant is exclusive. An exclusive easement in gross lets the holder exclude even you from the corridor.
- Check for a blanket description. Blanket pipeline easements are more common than buyers expect on rural acreage.
- For income-producing easements — billboards, cell sites — confirm who receives the rent after closing, and whether the payment stream was assigned away previously.
What the recorded wording looks like
Commercial easement in gross
Grantor grants to Grantee, a corporation, its successors and assigns forever, an exclusive easement fifty (50) feet in width for the construction, operation, maintenance, inspection, alteration, repair, replacement and removal of one or more pipelines for the transportation of natural gas, together with the right to assign this easement in whole or in part.
What each phrase actually does
- “a corporation, its successors and assigns”
- No benefited parcel is named. The right belongs to the company, which is what makes it in gross.
- “exclusive”
- Stronger than most easements: it can bar the landowner from using the corridor, not merely from interfering.
- “one or more pipelines”
- Permits additional lines later within the same corridor, without a new grant or a new payment.
- “right to assign this easement in whole or in part”
- Explicit transferability. The company you negotiated with may not be the company that shows up.
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
- Recorded release by the holder, usually after facilities are abandoned in place or removed.
- Expiration of a stated term, common in cell-site and billboard easements.
- Death of the holder, for a genuinely personal easement in gross.
- Statutory abandonment procedures, which several states provide for railroad and pipeline corridors.
Common questions
Can a company sell the easement across my land?
If it is commercial, generally yes, and often without notifying you. Look for an express right to assign in the grant. The new holder takes the same rights, no more and no less, so the practical change for you is usually who answers the phone.
Do I get paid rent for an easement in gross?
Only if the grant says so. Utility corridors are usually paid once, at the time of the original grant. Cell sites, billboards and some fiber agreements are structured as recurring payments, and those payment rights can be assigned separately from the land.
What happens if the holder disappears?
The easement does not vanish with the company. Clearing a stale corridor from your title normally means tracing the corporate successor and getting a release, or using a state abandonment procedure if one exists for that facility type.
Is a utility easement always in gross?
Usually, but not always. A utility easement dedicated on a plat to serve the subdivision can function more like a public dedication, and a private water-line easement serving a specific neighboring lot is appurtenant to that lot. Read the grant rather than assuming from the label.
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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 in gross
- PHMSA — pipeline safety and public awareness — Landowner guidance for living near transmission pipelines.
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.