Glossary

Easement & title glossary

Title documents are written for underwriters, not buyers. These are the terms that actually change what you can build, fence, or pave. Each one in plain English.

Adverse possession
A claim to ownership, not just use, earned by occupying land for the statutory period.
Appurtenant easement
An easement that benefits a neighboring parcel rather than a person or company.
Blanket easement
An easement recorded across an entire parcel instead of a described strip, so its exact location on the ground is undefined.
Buildable envelope
The part of a lot left over once setbacks, easements, and corridors are removed.
Conservation easement
A recorded restriction that permanently limits development on land to protect farmland, habitat, water, or open space.
Dominant estate
The parcel that benefits from an appurtenant easement.
Easement
A legal right for someone else to use part of your land for a specific purpose.
Easement by necessity
Access granted by a court when a parcel would otherwise be landlocked.
Easement in gross
An easement held by a person or company rather than by a neighboring parcel.
Encroachment
A structure that extends onto land it does not belong on.
Encumbrance
Any claim or right held by someone other than the owner that affects the property.
Prescriptive easement
A use right earned by open, continuous, unpermitted use over a period set by state law.
Restrictive covenant
A recorded private rule limiting how land in a subdivision may be used.
Right-of-way
The right to travel across land, and the strip of land set aside for that travel.
Schedule B
The section of a title commitment listing what the policy will not cover.
Servient estate
The parcel burdened by an easement.
Setback
The minimum distance a structure must sit from a property line or right-of-way.
Survey (ALTA/boundary)
A licensed surveyor's map showing the true boundary lines and where recorded easements actually fall on the ground.
Title commitment
The insurer's written promise to issue a title policy, subject to listed conditions.
Title policy exception
A specific risk the title insurer refuses to cover.
Utility easement
A strip of land reserved so a utility can install and maintain its lines.

More easement guides

Keep reading in the free knowledge hub, or check how your state treats prescriptive easements.

Easement knowledge hub Easement law by state Analyze your title commitment

How these terms fit together

Most easement vocabulary answers one of three questions: who holds the right, how the right came to exist, and what the right allows. An appurtenant easement belongs to a neighboring parcel and travels with it when either property sells; an easement in gross belongs to a person or a company, which is why utility easements survive every sale. The parcel that carries the burden is the servient estate; the one that benefits is the dominant estate.

How the right arose matters just as much. An express easement was written and recorded. A prescriptive easement was earned by open, continuous use over your state's statutory period without permission. An easement by necessity or by implication arises when a parcel was split in a way that left one piece landlocked or dependent. The first shows up in a records search; the last three often do not.

Where you will meet them

On a title commitment, easements sit in Schedule B along with covenants, liens and other exceptions. The things the title insurer will not cover. That schedule is where terms like encumbrance, restrictive covenant and right of way turn up, usually attached to a book-and-page reference rather than a description you can picture. Reading the underlying recorded instrument is the only way to learn the width of the strip and what it prohibits.

If you have a document in front of you, how to read a recorded easement breaks a real clause down phrase by phrase. If you are trying to work out what a burdened lot is worth, the easement value calculator shows the before-and-after math appraisers use.

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.