Utility easement: What It Means for Your Property

Utility easement

A utility easement gives an electric, gas, water, sewer or telecom provider the recorded right to install and maintain equipment inside a defined strip of your land.

Also searched as: power line easement, electric easement, PUE, public utility easement.

Typical residential width: 5 to 15 feet along a lot line
Typical duration: Perpetual
Who holds it: A utility provider or the public generally, by plat dedication
Usual restriction: No permanent structures, limited planting, access must stay clear

What it is

A utility easement is the most common encumbrance on an American residential lot. It is a recorded grant that lets a named provider — or, on a subdivision plat, any provider the developer dedicated the strip to — enter a described part of your property to install, inspect, repair, replace and remove lines and equipment. You keep ownership of the ground and usually keep the right to use the surface, as long as your use does not interfere with theirs.

The width is what matters. A rear-lot distribution easement is often 5 to 10 feet; a transmission corridor can be 75 to 150 feet, and the wider it is, the more of the lot is effectively unbuildable. Some older grants are blanket easements with no described strip at all: the utility may place facilities anywhere on the parcel until it fixes a location by actually building, at which point the corridor is treated as set.

Utility easements are almost always perpetual and almost always transferable within the industry. When a rural cooperative sells its lines to a regional utility, the easement goes with them. That is why the name in a forty-year-old grant rarely matches the company that shows up with a bucket truck.

How it shows up in the records

As a Schedule B exception in the title commitment, phrased as "Easement granted to [utility] recorded in Book ___, Page ___".
As a dashed strip labeled "P.U.E." or "10' Utility Easement" along a lot line on the recorded subdivision plat.
As a separately recorded easement deed with a metes-and-bounds or centerline description, common outside platted subdivisions.
As physical evidence — pedestals, pad-mounted transformers, guy wires, manhole lids, pole lines and cleared vegetation corridors.

If you want to build

Permanent structures inside the corridor are usually prohibited outright: houses, garages, additions, decks on footings, and in-ground pools.
Fences are often allowed only with removable panels or a gate for access, and the utility may remove a fence without replacing it if it blocks a repair.
Deep-rooted or tall species are commonly barred; utilities cut trees inside the corridor on their own schedule and are rarely liable for replacing them.
Grade changes matter more than owners expect. Adding two feet of fill over a buried line, or cutting the cover down, both violate typical maintenance clauses.

If you are buying

Measure the strip against the buildable envelope before you write an offer, not after inspection: a 15-foot rear easement on a shallow lot can eliminate the only place an addition would fit.
Ask whether the corridor is described or blanket. A blanket easement is a genuine title problem worth raising with the seller.
Look for a recorded encroachment: a shed, pool or fence already sitting inside the corridor becomes your liability at closing.
Overhead transmission lines usually affect resale price more than buried distribution lines. Local comparable sales are the honest way to size that, not a rule of thumb.

What the recorded wording looks like

Typical utility easement grant

Grantor hereby grants and conveys unto Grantee, its successors and assigns, a perpetual easement and right-of-way ten (10) feet in width for the purpose of constructing, operating, maintaining, repairing, replacing and removing electric distribution facilities, together with the right of ingress and egress over adjoining lands of Grantor, and the right to trim, cut and remove trees and other obstructions that may endanger or interfere with said facilities.

What each phrase actually does

“successors and assigns”: The right is not personal to the company named. It survives mergers and sales, which is why the grantee name is often obsolete.
“perpetual”: No expiry date. It ends only by release, condemnation, or formal abandonment.
“ten (10) feet in width”: The described width is the corridor you cannot build in. If the grant gives no width, treat it as a blanket easement.
“ingress and egress over adjoining lands”: Crews may cross the rest of your lot to reach the corridor, which is why a fully fenced yard often needs a gate.
“trim, cut and remove trees”: Vegetation management on the utility's schedule, generally without compensation for the trees removed.

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

A recorded release or quitclaim from the utility, usually after the facilities are relocated at the owner's cost.
Formal abandonment: the lines are removed and the utility records an abandonment instrument. Simply going unused is rarely enough.
Relocation agreements during redevelopment, where a new corridor is granted and the old one released in the same transaction.
Condemnation or vacation by the public body that holds a dedicated plat easement, typically as part of a street or subdivision vacation.

Common questions

Can the utility come onto my property without telling me?

For routine maintenance inside the corridor, usually yes — the grant itself is the permission. Many utilities give courtesy notice for planned work, and emergency repairs are never noticed in advance. Notice obligations, where they exist, come from the wording of the grant or a state statute, not from a general rule.

Do I still pay property taxes on the easement strip?

Yes. You still own the land; the utility owns a right to use it. Some assessors reduce the assessed value of a heavily encumbered strip, especially under a transmission corridor, but you have to raise it with the assessor rather than expecting it automatically.

Can I get paid for a utility easement already on my land?

Not for one that already exists — that compensation was paid to a previous owner, or the strip was dedicated when the subdivision was platted. Payment comes up when a utility asks for a new or wider easement, and that is a negotiation about the value of what the new corridor takes away.

What if the pole is not where the easement says it should be?

That is a real and common discrepancy. Equipment installed outside the described corridor may be an encroachment the utility needs to correct, or may point to a second unrecorded grant. A surveyor's location of the facilities against the recorded description is what settles 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.

Analyze my title commitment Estimate easement value

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.

FHWA — utility accommodation and relocation — Federal guidance on utility occupancy of rights-of-way.
Common Ground Alliance — 811 damage prevention — Locate-before-you-dig requirements that apply inside utility corridors.

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.