Easement in real estate and its importance
The topic looks a bit ambiguous but don’t worry; we will make it a nutshell for you. Easement in property or real estate is access to someone’s property you don’t possess, and you don’t need to get permission. Similarly, an easement also allows a third party to access your property without your consent.
The third party may be an individual, a firm, a group, a company, or a government body. These words might have cleared the question, ‘What is an easement?’ that tickles your mind. Now, you are worrying about why someone can access my property without your permission. Quite simply, it is an alarming definition, but let me clear your anxieties. If you take it seriously that it will harm your ownership of the property, then you are false.
The access of the third party to your property has nothing to do with your parcel. A common issue, for example, is there is a house located across your property, and the owners of that house need a power connection. So, according to the easement act, the concerned power company can access your property without defecting it under specific rules. Furthermore, if someday your property gets harmed, the third party will give your relief.
Now, you can also get the benefits of the easement act. If you have a home, but there lays the land area of your neighbors in the proximity of your home, and you have to cross his property to reach yours, then the easement act allows you to do so. Shortly, having an easement is necessary and essential. We cannot deny the importance of an easement.
Formation of an easement
You might have a curiosity about how an easement gets formed. The formation of an easement is elementary as you know that every property deal observes an agreement so is the easement. The third party I discussed above agrees with the property owners to use their property. Sometimes, the ease finders pay some compensation to landowners. But, the easement giver should not expect extra initiatives from a third party. The formation of an easement varies with the kinds of easement.
Kinds of easement
There are many kinds of an easement, but I will discuss, for your convenience, only four of them.
Utility easement
Sometimes, you have to stick with specific regulations. Utility easement comes under gross easement. Government issues utility easements to facilitate citizens. The utility companies like gas, water, power, sewer have the right to do anything that could benefit the residents. However, they have no right to do anything on their behalf. They do it on the instruction of the government. If you are the property owner and want to execute a utility plan, you cannot stop them from the operation.
Furthermore, under the utility easement, they can also restrict you from doing harmful actions to neighbors, like planting trees over the surface where a power or gas line exists.
Private easement
We always try to help you out with different problems and guide your time and again. ‘Sigma properties‘ is always there for your help to buy a property. You must pay a visit to a property before purchasing to avoid easement problems. For example, you own a home that does not have a direct connection to a power pole. Thus, you have to ask your neighbor to let you pass your power connection over his house. He enables you to do it; this is called a private easement.
Remember, the private easement could be harmful to subsequent owners. For example, if the new owner of the home over which you have passed your connection wire is not agreeable to the agreement which you had made with the former owner, then the deal will not go long, and you have to agree with the new owner the house.
Prescriptive easement
You must have full knowledge of the property you possessed if your neighbor has fenced an area without your permission despite the land he has fenced belonging to you. It will lead to severe enmity. Though you have given him cautions verbally, but did not take any legal action. Then, the court will decide the case on your neighbor’s behalf and would be considered a failure on your side. So, the court, then, gives your neighbor a prescriptive easement despite not having ownership of the property.
Necessary easement
Sometimes, by mistake, you buy a landlocked home or property with no direct access to the main road. Indeed, you should ask your neighbors to give you the path to access your property and from the property to the main road. This matter then becomes necessary to be resolved. You agree with your neighbor called necessary easement or easement of necessity.
Conclusion
The stage is now set for you whether to give easement or take. Indeed, an easement in real estate is essential. If you don’t agree to sign an easement, you may also fall victim to a problem where you may need an easement. Do you have a property that needs easement?
