An Overview of Easement Types and Significance

In short, an easement is simply a legal right to use another person’s land for a specific limited purpose. In real estate law, it allows the holder of the easement to access property that they do not own to benefit themselves or their land for a specific purpose. Easements are typically granted for purposes such as the construction and maintenance of utility lines, roads, or the right of way allowing passage across a property. They are intended to be beneficial to the property that holds the easement, known as the dominant estate, and do not typically involve the taking of a portion of the property permanently, unlike a right of ownership.

Easements come in many forms, they can be permanent and run with the land, in other words if you have an easement to drive across your neighbors property to access your own, most likely the easement is permanent and will still exist even if your neighbor sells his property or you sell yours.

An easement can also be for a specific period of time. I just recently completed a transaction for a client and part of the agreement was that the seller had a right to traverse the property for exactly 12 months to give him time to create a new access point for his adjacent property, at the end of 12 months the easement will no longer be in effect.

An easement can also be for a specific person, for example, an easement could be granted to an individual to access land to hunt or fish for a specific period of time or until he dies. If the landowner sold the property, the easement would still exist and the new owner would take title subject to the terms of the easement.

The previously discussed types of easements are what are referred to as affirmative easements, there is another type of easement, although less common it is worth knowing about, these are referred to as negative easements. Affirmative easements allow for something to happen, negative easements prevent something from happening. An example of a negative easement is a view easement. A View easement would prevent any future improvements on the burdened estate from impeding the view of an adjacent property. Conservation easements are another type of negative easement that prevent development in order to preserve land in its current state for the benefit of wildlife.

Most easements are filed with the county, although there is no legal requirement to do so for the easement to be valid, however, filing an easement would go a long way in helping to enforce the agreed upon terms.

Before buying any property, be sure to check if any easements exist, if you use a title company they will bring any existing recorded easements to your attention, if you do not use a title company, it will be up to you to locate and examine existing easements.

Feel free to reach out if you have questions about easements or any other real estate issues.

Rob Swan, Swan Realty

575-613-4243 Rob@SwanRealtyInc.com