Easements & Your Property

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OWNERSHIP OF REAL PROPERTY MAY BE SUBJECT TO
PUBLIC & PRIVATE EASEMENTS

      An easement allows another person or entity the right to use your land for a specific purpose. The most common easements are those granted to public utility or telephone companies to run lines on or under your private property and to neighboring houses to use a common driveway to give access to their home.

Right of Way

      A right of way is a form of an easement granted by the property owner that gives the right to travel over your land and to have the reasonable use and enjoyment of your property to others as long as it is not inconsistent with your use and enjoyment of the land. 
      These principles had their origin in traditional common law which governed, for example, the free flow of water or allowed neighboring landowners to travel over another's property, creating an informal road system common in rural and agricultural societies.
      Although ownership rights of property are lessened by an easement, society at large benefits due to the additional freedom of movement.

Easements & Encroachments

      Easements and encroachments can affect both the value and your ownership of land. People may have been traveling across your land for years to gain access to adjacent property. The access easement belongs to the land, not to the neighbors. Whoever buys their property will own the easement over your land. 

      An encroachment is an unauthorized entry upon land of another; whether or not an obstruction is placed upon the land. Traditional common law created the action of trespass for injury to your property when another interfered with your property rights by an unauthorized and direct breach of the boundaries of your land, enabling you to bring a lawsuit to recover damages for the intrusion.
      The converse is also true, when you trespass or encroach upon the land of another, you can be held responsible for damages.

      If your neighbor placed a fence across fifteen feet of your property line, and the encroachment met the statutory requirements of your state for "Adverse Possession", that encroachment could eventually allow your neighbor to gain title to that land. 

      Benefits and burdens run with the land. What you obtained when you acquired the property from the previous owner passes to you. The easements and encroachments, whether they be benefits or burdens upon your land, which existed at the time that you acquired the land continue, while you own the land.

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