Easement guides

Finding and reading the records

Where recorded easements live, how to pull them, and how to read what a title company hands you.

• How to search a county recorder's office for easements on your lot

  A step-by-step walkthrough of the grantor-grantee index, plat books and instrument numbers, so you can pull every recorded easement for a lot yourself.

What the law says

How long use takes to ripen into a right, how easements end, and what statutes govern solar access and conservation.

• How easements end: release, merger, abandonment and expiration

  Easements usually last forever, but they can end by written release, by one owner acquiring both parcels, by abandonment, or by their own terms. California's statutes illustrate each path.

• Prescriptive easements: how long use takes to become a right in key states

  Prescriptive easements borrow their clock from each state's adverse possession statute. Here is how California, Texas, New York and Ohio set that clock, with the statutes linked.

• Solar easements and solar access laws: how states protect sunlight

  Some states let owners record a solar easement guaranteeing sunlight across a neighbor's land, and others limit HOA bans on panels. California and Florida show both approaches.

Living with an easement

Driveways, drainage, trees, building and access: practical rules for owners of burdened land.

• Can a utility company cut down trees in its easement? What owners can do

  Utilities usually have broad vegetation rights in their corridors, but the written easement, state rules and advance-notice practices shape what they can do and what you can ask for.

• Can you build over an easement? A project-by-project owner's guide

  Before placing a fence, shed, addition or pavement in an easement, check the grant, survey, holder's consent and local permit rules.

• Conservation easements: how they work, what they cost you, and the tax rules

  A conservation easement permanently limits development in exchange for conservation value and sometimes a tax deduction. Here is what landowners and buyers should understand.

• Drainage easements and flooding: what homeowners are responsible for

  Drainage easements keep stormwater moving between lots. Here is how they are created, who usually maintains them, and how they relate to FEMA flood zones.

• Easements by necessity: when a landlocked lot may have access

  How common ownership, a land split and lack of legal access may support an easement by necessity, with Florida and California statutes.

• How to read Schedule B of a title commitment before closing

  A buyer's line-by-line guide to Schedule B requirements, exceptions, recorded easements and the questions to ask before closing.

• Shared driveway agreements: access, repairs and neighbor disputes

  What a recorded shared driveway agreement should say about access, maintenance, snow removal, parking, repairs and future owners.

• Utility easement vs. right-of-way: what each one lets others do on your land

  The two terms get used interchangeably, but a utility easement and a road right-of-way usually carry different scopes, owners and consequences for what you can build.

Guides to each type of easement

What each kind of easement is, how it appears in the records, and what it means if you want to build or buy.

• Access easement (driveway easement)

  An access easement gives a specific parcel the recorded right to cross another parcel to reach a public road, most often over a shared driveway or private lane.

• Appurtenant easement

  An appurtenant easement benefits a parcel rather than a person, so it transfers automatically every time either property is sold.

• Conservation easement

  A conservation easement is a voluntary, recorded restriction that permanently limits development on a property, held and enforced by a land trust or government agency.

• Drainage easement

  A drainage easement reserves part of a lot for stormwater to collect, flow or be stored, and it usually forbids anything that would block or redirect the water.

• 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.

• 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.

• Prescriptive easement

  A prescriptive easement is a right of use earned by years of open, continuous use without the owner's permission, the use-based cousin of adverse possession.

• Right-of-way easement

  A right-of-way is an easement to pass over land along a defined route, the category that covers public road corridors, railroads, trails and many private lanes.

• 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.

Reference libraries

• Easement law by state . Prescriptive easement periods and recording rules for 51 states.
• County easement guides . Recorder offices, recording practice and local easement context by county.
• Homeowner questions : 54 short answers to what owners ask most.
• Easement and title glossary : 21 terms defined in plain English.