What Landowners Need to Know About Easements
The Land Up Learning Series
Anyone owning or purchasing land naturally hopes that it's truly, fully theirs. But most properties, particularly in the Central Texas area, come with what are called "easements."
If you’re in the market for buying and/or selling your land, you may have recently found out about an easement on the property. This can be a good thing, a bad thing, or an entirely neutral thing!
To give you some peace of mind, we’re here to give you the scoop on what easements are, the easement types and how they affect your property.
Let us guide you through exactly what an easement is, and isn’t
What Are Property Easements?
An easement is a legal agreement between the property owner and a non-owner to utilize a portion of the property in some fashion; an important concept to understand when buying investment land. In other words, they do not convey ownership of the property itself, but instead, can grant a right to access a specific area with specific intentions.
Generally, unless otherwise modified by the parties, the person who is granted an easement provides the ordinary care in using the easement and a has duty to maintain it. The party who granted the easement usually does not interfere with the dominant estate holder’s use of the easement.
Easements can be positive when it's something like an area where utilities are buried below and it allows easy access to a service which benefits your property. On the other hand, it can be very intrusive when a company is going to lay an oil pipeline on a portion of your land and it doesn’t benefit you at all. There are many different types of easements but today we’re just going to talk about the most common ones in the Central Texas area - Driveway, Public Utility and Pipeline Easements.
Driveway Easements:
Ingress/egress easements, or more commonly called driveway easements, are the right to access a property for the purposes of driving to and from the property. When you see these types of easements be sure there is a recorded document that explains if there are any restrictions.
Example: Sharing parking with another neighbor.
This type of easement can specify that each homeowner owns part of the driveway but has the legal right to use the full space to drive to and from their property. Other times, one homeowner owns the entire driveway, and the easement grants the neighbor sharing the driveway the right to use part of it.
Public Utility Easements:
Public Utility Easements (or PUE’s) are the right to run certain utilities on a person’s property. Almost all of these easements include a right to access the property in order to conduct repairs and maintenance. Electric, water, and sewer could run through your property and companies would have access to maintain these lines, but they don’t actually own the portion of your land being used.
Example #1: A utility company may have the right to trim a tree in your backyard if it's interfering with telephone lines.
This easement can be an inconvenience for the landowner, however, it benefits the community as a whole. Without this type of easement, providing essential services may be more difficult.
Pipeline Easements:
A pipeline easement specifically gives the easement holder the right to build and maintain a pipeline on a landowner’s property. These types of easements can be difficult to work with when constructing driveways or running utilities. Most pipelines have a laundry list of rules that are required in order to do improvements in or across their easement. Make sure you contact the pipeline company to understand where lines lay and to get permission before planning any construction.
Example: A large utility provider has the right to use a portion of your land to lay a new natural gas pipeline.
Maintaining or adding pipelines may be more intrusive than other utilities but it depends on the type of line and how things are being done. For example, some natural gas providers will add a new line with a machine that feeds the pipe completely underground with no disturbance to what is above. In other situations work might require digging through a yard or even expensive landscaping. But either way, knowing what access a pipeline company has when you purchase a property is the first step in dealing with any potential issues.
This easement tends to “run with the land,” meaning that it remains on the property and applies to all future property owners. This is why It’s important to be aware of how they can affect your property or property you are about to purchase.
How do you know if there are easements on a property?
People often make the mistake of assuming that one can easily determine the existence of an easement by simply searching the public records for a document called “easement.” While many easement agreements are written into the property records, that is not always the case. The good news is some easements can be obtained through other means.
It’s always important to know the type of easements you have and any restrictions that go along with them. Make sure you consult with a real estate professional or law expert who can interpret them for you.
At Land Up Realty + Investments, our dedicated team of real estate agents have experience representing property owners, brokers and prospective purchasers in easement matters. And we would be happy to help assist you with any easement questions you may have.
For more information, contact us or give us a call 512-856-6653.