How do I find easements on my property?

The easiest place to find recorded easements is your title commitment, specifically Schedule B. This section lists exceptions to title coverage, including easements, covenants, and rights-of-way that affect the property.

Next, search the county recorder's office or online land records for your parcel. Look for deeds, plats, easement deeds, and right-of-way agreements that mention your lot or block.

Many counties publish a GIS parcel viewer that overlays tax parcels with recorded easements and corridor layers. These viewers are free, but the quality varies by county. Some show precise vector lines; others show only approximate locations.

Finally, check with your homeowner association, utility companies, and any neighbors who share driveways or access paths. Unrecorded or informal agreements can still create practical problems even if they are not legally enforceable.

What this looks like in practice

There is no single database of easements in the United States. Rights are recorded county by county, in deeds, plats, separate easement instruments, and sometimes in subdivision declarations, so the search is a sequence rather than a lookup. A title commitment is the fastest starting point because a title company has already run that sequence for insurance purposes.

Expect gaps. County GIS layers are drawn for planning, not for boundary work, and are often shifted from true location. Older easements may be described by metes and bounds that no longer reference an existing monument. Neither is a reason to skip the search, it is a reason to treat the map as a pointer to the document, not as the answer.