Easement, Rights, & Eminent Domain

Easement

Easement: An acquired right of use, interest, or privilege of another, without the ownership of the portion of the property. For an easement to be legal and binding, such an agreement must be in the general form of a grant deed, and must be recorded in the public records.

• An easement may be established by any municipality for any legitimate constituted public purpose.
• There may be compensation involved and sometimes time limits
• Example: A shared driveway between two properties. (the easement prevents this being moved or developed differently, which would take away the driveway access for the residents)

Utility Easement: Generally, nothing except sidewalks, driveways, parking, and landscaping can be built over a utility easement (generally, nothing “permanent”)

• Example: Government authority maintains an easement to get access to power lines that are only accessible through a person's property. They would need the easement to provide access, as well as potentially staging and space for access to the actual power lines.

Scenic Easement: Prevent the development of land that is of scenic value to the public

Party Wall: A form of an easement. A party wall is shared by two adjacent owners and each side owns their half of the wall and has an easement to use the other half of the wall. A common example of this is row houses.

• Example: If one house is built before the other, the first owner will build the wall and pay for it completely under an easement. The second owner then builds their property and pays the first owner for half of the construction cost of the party wall. They then share costs for upkeep and repairs involving the wall typically.

Right-of-way: An easement that allows one person to traverse the land creates a private right-of-way. A public right-of-way may come into existence simply by the long-established use of a pathway or roadway over private land whose owner fails to deter such use.