Easement: Difference between revisions

An Easement is the right to use a property without taking possession.

Types of easements

There are 3 classes of easements: (1) easements appurtenant, (2) easements in gross, and (3) profits à prendre.

An easement appurtenant is not assignable because it is inseparable from the dominant estate.

An easement for profit (profit-à-prendre in French) is a right to enter another’s land to extract something of value from it (as by mining, drilling, logging, fishing, or hunting). This kind of commercially purposed easement is virtually always assignable. See Restatement of Property § 489 comment b.

Easement creation

An easement can be created by

1. an express grant
2. a reservation, &
3. a prescriptive easement (by adverse possession).

Implied easement

An implied easement is an easement appurtenant; it can be remembered via the acronym SCONE

1. Apparent Servitude
2. Continuity
3. Necessity.

Termination of easements

Termination of easements may be remembered with the acronym MEND CRAP BFP:

1. Merger: the servient estate & the easement become vested in 1 person
2. Estoppel: the servient estate determinally changes position, in reasonable reliance that the easement holder is relinquishing the easement
3. Necessity: an alternative has becomes available to the easement by necessity (EBN)
4. Destruction of the servient estate

1. Condemnation through eminent domain
2. Release: easement holder voluntarily gives up the easement
3. Abandonment: easement is extinguished when the holder of the easement abandons it
4. Prescription: this occurs when the servient owner satisfies most elements of adverse possession

1. Purchase of the servient estate by a BFP (Bona fide purchaser https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/bona_fide_purchaser ) for value