Easement Right

Definition of easement right

An easement is a right given to another person or entity to trespass upon land that person or entity does not own. Easements are used for roads, for example or given to utility companies for the right to bury cables or access utility lines. Landlocked home owners sometimes pay for an easement to cross the land of another to reach their home.

Easements run with the land. Almost every home has an easement. It is important to look for easements in the public records, especially if a prospective buyer plans to put in a swimming pool. A property owner cannot build on top of an easement. Easements by prescription are acquired by hostile, open and notorious use for five years.

 For example: prescriptive easements could be claimed by a person who travels across a parcel of land owned by another and continuously for five years without the owner's permission or consent.

According to the section 4 of Easement Act 1882 

An easement is a right which the owner or occupier of certain land possesses, as such, for the beneficial enjoyment of that land, to do and continue to do something, or to prevent and continue to prevent something being done, in or upon, or in respect of, certain other land not his own.” Another definition of Easement: An easement is a certain right to use the real property of another without possessing it. It is "best typified in the right of way which one landowner, A, may enjoy over the land of another, B." It is similar to real covenants and equitable servitude in the United States, the Restatement (Third) of Property takes steps to merge these concepts as servitude. Easements are helpful for providing pathways across two or more pieces of property or allowing an individual to fish in a privately owned pond. An easement is considered as a property right in itself at common law and is still treated as a type of property in most jurisdictions. The rights of an easement holder vary substantially among jurisdictions. Historically, the common law courts would enforce only four types of easement: 1.     Right-of-way (easements of way) 2.     Easements of support (pertaining to excavations) 3.     Easements of "light and air" 4.     Rights pertaining to artificial waterways Modern courts recognize more varieties of easements, but these original categories still form the foundation of easement law. An easement is a right which the owner or occupier of certain land possesses, as such, for the beneficial enjoyment of that land, to do and continue to do something, or to prevent and continue to prevent something being done, in or upon, or in respect of, certain other land not his own.