You have purchased a new piece of real estate and found out that it has an easement. Maybe it has a shared driveway with another adjacent property owner. The easement is in place so that they can cross your new property to enter theirs, something they may have been doing for years or even decades with the previous owner.
But you never agreed to that easement to begin with. Do you still have to honor it after purchasing the property? Or can you simply decide that the arrangement has come to an end because it is your property and you do not want anyone else to have access to it?
Different types of easements
The key likely lies in the type of easement that exists. In some cases, two property owners will have a personal agreement, which is just an easement that the two of them have set up. This agreement may only last as long as those two individuals own the property, so you would have the option to remove it or renegotiate it if you wanted to.
But in other cases, the law says the easement runs with the land. This is known as an easement appurtenant. In cases like this, the law typically views the easement as a part of the land itself, meaning that property owners cannot unilaterally decide not to honor it. You may be obligated to honor it because you purchased it along with your new real estate.
Ideally, you should know exactly how the easement works before you make the purchase, and it is important to know what legal steps to take if an easement leads to conflict or disagreement.
