Easements Created by a Court Order or a Partition Decree
When a judge splits co-owned land or settles an access fight, the resulting right of way lives in a case file. Where it is indexed, why searches miss it, and what to ask for.
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Property Easement Guidance
Plain-English articles on what an easement is, how one gets onto a parcel, what the county land records will and will not show, and how to read a recorded right of way, written by the team that produces the reports.
Articles
Slope and Grading Easements, and What They Let Someone Do
A grading easement lets someone reshape ground you still own. Where these rights come from, what they stop you doing, and how a records search turns one up.
Read articleWhat a Subsurface or Tunnel Easement Means for Your Land
Some easements take the ground below a parcel rather than the surface. What can run down there, how the right is worded, and why nothing about it is visible from the yard.
Read articleMarketable Title Acts, and the Easements They Can Cut Off
How a marketable title act works, which old easements it can extinguish, the exceptions that survive it, and why the search has to reach past the statutory period.
Read articleOverburdening an Easement, and When Extra Use Goes Too Far
What a recorded grant fixes about permitted use, the changes that push a right of way past its limits, and what the county record can and cannot settle.
Read articleParking Easements and Shared Lot Agreements, and What They Bind
Whether the parking you rely on is an easement, a lease or a handshake, what the instrument should pin down, and why both parcels have to be searched.
Read articleWhy a Recorded Easement Gets Missed, and How to Lower the Odds
How county land record indexes are actually built, the filing and scoping gaps that hide a real easement, what better inputs fix, and what no report can promise.
Read articleEasements Created by Dedication, and What Acceptance Adds
How an offer of dedication creates public rights, why an unaccepted offer can sit open for decades, and where the proof of acceptance actually lives.
Read articleFlag Lots and Panhandle Parcels, and How Access Is Held
Whether the driveway strip is part of your lot or an easement over someone else, why the deed that made the split decides it, and what the record cannot settle.
Read articleAir Rights and Overhang Easements, and Where to Find Them
What ownership above a parcel covers, how a cornice, balcony or crane jib becomes a recorded burden, and why so many of these agreements never reach the record.
Read articleTemporary Construction Easements, and What the Record Shows
What a construction easement grants, why an expired one can still appear live in the land records, and the four terms that decide what you are buying.
Read articleMerger of Title and What Happens to an Easement After It
When one owner acquires both parcels the easement can be extinguished, and nothing gets filed to say so. Why the grant stays in the index and when merger does not apply.
Read articleStormwater Detention and Retention Pond Easements on a Lot
The basin at the edge of a subdivision comes with pipes, access rights, and a maintenance duty someone inherits. What is recorded, and who ends up paying for it.
Read articleCondemnation Easements and What They Leave in the Record
A road widening or a transmission line can take a strip without taking the parcel. How these easements are acquired, who holds the power, and what the county record shows.
Read articleLivestock Crossing and Agricultural Access Easements on Farms
When a farm is divided, the water, the barn, or the road often ends up on one side. What a recorded crossing grant defines, and why so many were never written down.
Read articleCell Tower and Rooftop Antenna Easements on Your Property
A tower deal is usually a long ground lease plus an access easement, recorded as a thin memorandum. What the county record shows, who holds it now, and what stays hidden.
Read articleEasements by Implication and Estoppel, and Why They Hide
Two doctrines create access rights with no recorded grant at all. What the county record can still contribute, and why a clean search is never proof of an unburdened parcel.
Read articleSidewalk and Pedestrian Access Easements on Private Land
How a public walkway ends up crossing a private parcel, who is responsible for keeping it up, and what an easement search of the county record can and cannot establish about it.
Read articleWhat a View or Scenic Easement Does to a Neighboring Parcel
How a recorded view easement limits building and planting on the burdened land, the three places these restrictions come from, and what a records search can and cannot establish.
Read articleScoping an Easement Search Before a Commercial Loan Closing
What a lender needs answered about access and burdens, when in diligence to order the search, how to pick the term, and what the record cannot settle for the file.
Read articleHistoric Preservation and Facade Easements on the Record
What a preservation easement restricts, who holds it, how long it lasts, where it appears in the county record, and why a landmark designation is a separate question.
Read articleBoundary Line Agreements: Fixing a Disputed Line by Consent
Two neighbors can settle a line by written agreement rather than litigating it, and the instrument only works if it is drafted and recorded properly. What to check.
Read articleEmergency and Fire Access Easements: What the Record Shows
Fire and emergency access usually comes from a plat, a condition of approval, or an agreement with a district, and it can bar gates and parking. What to check.
Read articleAccess Easements Across Federal and State Land: The Record
A road across public land may be an easement, a revocable permit, or a claim with no instrument at all, and the county may hold none of it. What a search can show.
Read articleBlanket Easements: When the Instrument Names No Location
Some grants burden an entire parcel without describing a route. What a blanket easement means for building, how a location gets fixed, and what the record can show.
Read articleDo Easements Survive a Tax Sale or a Foreclosure of the Land?
An easement is a property right rather than a debt, so an involuntary sale usually does not erase it. What the record shows about survival, priority, and the exceptions.
Read articleFlowage and Flood Easements: The Right to Put Water on Land
A flowage easement lets somebody flood your land, permanently or occasionally. Where these rights come from, what the instrument controls, and what the record cannot show.
Read articleTimber and Logging Road Easements: Access on Rural Land
Haul road easements and reciprocal road agreements burden a lot of rural ground, and a timber deed can separate the trees from the land. What the record shows.
Read articleVacated Streets and Alleys: What the Easement Search Shows
When a city vacates a street or alley, the fee usually goes to the abutting owners and the utility easements usually stay. What the record shows, and what it will not.
Read articleEasements in a Condominium or Planned Community: What to Check
Declarations, plats, utility strips, and cross access deals with the neighbors. Four separate layers of recorded rights over the same ground, and how to search them.
Read articleRelocating or Amending an Easement: What Actually Gets Recorded
Moving a driveway or a utility line is a paperwork problem before it is a construction problem. The three routes to a change, and the document each one produces.
Read articleHunting and Recreational Access Easements: What Is Recorded
How access to hunt, fish, or cross rural land gets created, which forms survive a sale, and what a county records search will and will not show about them.
Read articleSewer Line and Septic Easements: Who Can Cross Your Land
Public mains, private laterals, and drain fields on someone else's lot. What the county record shows about wastewater rights, and what it cannot tell you.
Read articleCemetery Access Easements: Rights of Way to Family Plots
A small family burial ground in the middle of a field comes with access rights, and often with no recorded document. What the record shows, and what statutes add.
Read articleShared Wells: Easements, Agreements, and What Is Recorded
Two houses on one well need a location, a line, and a cost arrangement. What a shared well agreement should cover, and what the county record will show.
Read articleBillboard and Sign Easements: What Is Recorded, and for How Long
Outdoor advertising rights can be an easement, a long lease, or nothing recorded at all. What to look for, and the clause that limits what you can build.
Read articleParty Wall Agreements: Shared Walls and Shared Obligations
A wall two buildings depend on carries rights and repair duties for both owners. What a party wall agreement covers, and what the county record will show.
Read articleAvigation Easements: What an Airport Records on Your Land
Airports buy the airspace over nearby parcels and record the grant. What an avigation easement gives up, what it limits, and how to find one before you buy.
Read articleIrrigation Ditches and Canals: Easements and Access Rights
A ditch crossing your land usually carries a right to enter and maintain it. Where that right comes from, how wide it runs, and what the county record will show.
Read articlePrivate Roads: Who Maintains Them, and What Is Recorded
Access and upkeep are two different documents, and rural parcels often have one without the other. What a road maintenance agreement covers, and what to ask for.
Read articleLake and Waterfront Access Easements: What Gets Recorded
How back lots get to the water, why the plat matters as much as the deeds, and what the record can and cannot settle about docks, paths, and who may use them.
Read articleEasements, Title Insurance, and the Schedule B Exceptions
Why a title policy lists easements instead of covering them, how to read the exceptions on a commitment, and what a search gives you that a policy does not.
Read articleSolar and Wind Energy Easements: What Gets Recorded, and Where
How solar access rights and wind leases reach the land records, why a memorandum may be all you find, and what to ask for when a parcel sits inside a project.
Read articleBuying Vacant Land: Why the Easement Search Comes First
Why open ground carries more recorded burdens than an improved lot, the two separate questions access and buildability ask, and how to choose a search term.
Read articleRailroad Right of Way: Easement, Fee, or Something Else
Why an old rail corridor may be owned outright or merely crossed by an easement, what abandonment and railbanking change, and what the county record can settle.
Read articleEasement or License: Which One Is Crossing Your Property
The difference between an interest in land and permission to use it, why licenses almost never appear in a search, and what to put in writing before a favor hardens.
Read articleEncroachment or Easement: What That Fence Actually Means
One is a physical thing in the wrong place, the other is a recorded right. Why the distinction decides your options, and which document answers which question.
Read articlePipeline Easements: What the Recorded Grant Actually Allows
Why pipeline grants are broader than people expect, what the three load bearing terms are, and why the recorded instrument never tells you where the pipe is.
Read articleTelecom and Fiber Easements: New Lines, Old Recorded Grants
How a fiber project reaches a property, why a seventy year old telephone grant matters to it, and the terms to settle before signing an easement offer.
Read articleEasement Appurtenant or Easement in Gross: Who Holds It
The difference between a right that belongs to a neighboring parcel and one that belongs to a company, how to spot each in a recorded grant, and why it matters to a buyer.
Read articleEasements Created by a Subdivision Plat: Reading the Map
How a recorded plat puts utility, drainage, and access easements on a lot before anyone lives there, why setbacks are not easements, and how to find the map that governs.
Read articleConservation Easements: A Permanent Limit on Development
Why a conservation easement restricts building rather than granting access, the four terms worth reading in the instrument, and why search depth decides whether you find it.
Read articleDrainage Easements: Where the Water Is Legally Allowed to Go
The three shapes a drainage burden takes, who is actually responsible for keeping it clear, and the version of the problem that no document records.
Read articleBuilding On or Near an Easement: What the Record Controls
What an easement strip usually stops you doing, why a building permit is not the holder consenting, and the order to work in before anything gets poured.
Read articleShared Driveway Easements: Access, Upkeep, and the Record
The three ways a shared drive can be set up, why maintenance causes more disputes than access, and why the search has to cover both lots and reach back far enough.
Read articleHow an Easement Ends: Release, Merger, Expiration, Abandonment
The four ways a recorded easement actually terminates, why non-use is not one of them, and why an unrecorded release keeps showing up on every search of the parcel.
Read articlePrescriptive Easements: The Burden That Never Reaches the Record
How a right of way can arise from years of use alone, why no search can find one, what a clean report does and does not establish, and the three checks that go with it.
Read articleLandlocked Property: Easements by Necessity and Recorded Access
How parcels lose road frontage, where a recorded right of access is usually written, why easements by necessity leave no instrument, and what a search can confirm.
Read articleUtility Easements: What Power, Gas, and Telecom Records Show
Who holds a utility easement, why it belongs to a company rather than a neighboring lot, where the grant is recorded, and what a records search cannot locate for you.
Read articleHow to Find Out What Easements Are Recorded on a Property
Where easements actually get written down, why the current deed is not enough, how to choose a 20, 30, or 50 year search term, and what a survey adds that records cannot.
Read articleWhat Is a Right-of-Way Easement, and Who Gets to Use It?
What a right of way permits, who holds it, why a driveway in daily use is not proof one exists, and what the county land records can confirm before you buy.
Read articleOrder Your Easement Search Today
Certified abstractors search the county land records against your parcel and report the easements found of record, with a copy of every recorded instrument attached. Order online in minutes, or tell us about the parcel and we will help you pick the search term.
Questions? Call 877-848-5337 ext. 138 or email [email protected]