Easement

A legal right to use someone else's land for a specific purpose without owning it.

An easement is a legal right that allows someone to use a portion of another person’s land for a specific purpose. The most common types are utility easements (allowing utility companies to run power lines or pipes across your property), access easements (allowing a neighbor to use your driveway to reach their property), and drainage easements (allowing water to flow across your land).

Easements can be created by a written agreement, by long-term use (called a prescriptive easement), or by necessity (when a property would be landlocked without access across a neighbor’s land). In Minnesota, easements are typically recorded with the county recorder’s office and run with the land, meaning they remain in effect even when the property is sold to a new owner.

Why it matters: An easement affects what you can and cannot do with your property. Before buying property, it is important to check for existing easements because they can limit where you can build, fence, or landscape. If someone is using your property without an easement, you may have the right to stop them.

Example: A homeowner’s property can only be accessed by driving across a neighbor’s land. A written easement grants the homeowner the legal right to use the neighbor’s driveway. When the neighbor sells the property, the new owner must continue to honor the easement.