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Overview
This white paper is an essential practice guide for attorneys and landowners with access easement issues or potential issues. As important as access is to the enjoyment and value of real property, it is easy to take easements for granted. If you or a client needs to judicially establish a non-express easement for a dominant estate, it is certainly best to do so while you have living witnesses. If someone wants to terminate an easement across his servient estate, he can start the statute of limitations running on an adverse possession period by locking a gate or otherwise blocking access. This article encourages landowners and attorneys to survey existing situations with respect to access easements and keep an inventory and calendar of applicable statutes of limitations. A sample letter, survey form and evidence checklist are offered.
In drafting written easements and pleadings in easement litigation, we must appreciate the ambiguities and significant distinctions of the terms “right-of-way,” “easement,” “road” and “roadway,” and carefully select the appropriate term in context. “Right-of-way” may denote either a right of passage or a strip of land itself. When used in the sense of a “right of passage” it is virtually synonymous with “easement.” The Restatement of the Law (3d) Property: Servitudes (the “Restatement”) defines a servitude as “a legal device that creates a right or an obligation that runs with the land or an interest in land.” Section 1.1(1). Comment (d) adds:
The servitudes covered by this Restatement are easements, profits, and covenants that run with land. These are private-law devices, evolved over many centuries, that can be created by private individuals by contract, conveyance, estoppel, or prescription….
The Third Restatement, refining the discussion of easements in the First Restatement as interests in land, defines “easement” as follows: “An easement creates a nonpossessory right to enter and use land in the possession of another and obligates the possessor not to interfere with the uses authorized by the easement.” Section 1.2(1). An easement is not a piece of paper. The paper is the “grant” or the “deed” or the “agreement.” An easement is a device that creates a right, a particular kind of right. Easements can be for views, sunlight, access, etc. An easement is also not the road, and certainly not the surface of the road, or, as is usually the case in rural areas, the two-track. The definitions of both the words "road" and "roadway", as defined in my Webster’s, distinguish the "way" or "path" or "course" of the road from the surface of the road (or, the tracks of the road), or the "roadbed" as that term is defined and distinguished in the definitions. The terms "road" and "roadbed" can be used interchangeably, but strictly speaking, the term road is broader than the term roadbed. Sanctions have been sought for failure to distinguish in a petition (a) the abstraction of an easement right to use another's property from (b) the limitation of that right to a defined geographical part of the property over which the easement exists; and failure to make the distinction between (a) such a defined way, or road and (b) the physical surface of the road.
In drafting written easements and pleadings in easement litigation, we must appreciate the ambiguities and significant distinctions of the terms “right-of-way,” “easement,” “road” and “roadway,” and carefully select the appropriate term in context. “Right-of-way” may denote either a right of passage or a strip of land itself. When used in the sense of a “right of passage” it is virtually synonymous with “easement.” The Restatement of the Law (3d) Property: Servitudes (the “Restatement”) defines a servitude as “a legal device that creates a right or an obligation that runs with the land or an interest in land.” Section 1.1(1). Comment (d) adds:
The servitudes covered by this Restatement are easements, profits, and covenants that run with land. These are private-law devices, evolved over many centuries, that can be created by private individuals by contract, conveyance, estoppel, or prescription….
The Third Restatement, refining the discussion of easements in the First Restatement as interests in land, defines “easement” as follows: “An easement creates a nonpossessory right to enter and use land in the possession of another and obligates the possessor not to interfere with the uses authorized by the easement.” Section 1.2(1). An easement is not a piece of paper. The paper is the “grant” or the “deed” or the “agreement.” An easement is a device that creates a right, a particular kind of right. Easements can be for views, sunlight, access, etc. An easement is also not the road, and certainly not the surface of the road, or, as is usually the case in rural areas, the two-track. The definitions of both the words "road" and "roadway", as defined in my Webster’s, distinguish the "way" or "path" or "course" of the road from the surface of the road (or, the tracks of the road), or the "roadbed" as that term is defined and distinguished in the definitions. The terms "road" and "roadbed" can be used interchangeably, but strictly speaking, the term road is broader than the term roadbed. Sanctions have been sought for failure to distinguish in a petition (a) the abstraction of an easement right to use another's property from (b) the limitation of that right to a defined geographical part of the property over which the easement exists; and failure to make the distinction between (a) such a defined way, or road and (b) the physical surface of the road.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940013541894 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Curtis L. Brown |
| Publication date: | 05/14/2009 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 545 KB |
About the Author
Curtis L. Brown has over 34 years of transaction and litigation experience in real estate, tax, business and estate planning, and trust and estate administration. Before beginning his practice of law in Dallas in 1977, Mr. Brown received his CPA license and practiced in the New York City office of one of the largest international accounting firms. In the 1980’s he served as Managing Partner of Brown, Baskin, Bickel and Brewer, Attorneys, in Dallas and as General Counsel for Interstate Battery System of America, Inc.
Mr. Brown has lectured on various tax and legal topics, including as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Baylor Law School, State Bar of Texas and local bar association seminars, SMU Law School and Texas Tech Law School, and has authored numerous articles including Conservation Contributions: New Incentives, New Perspectives (2009), also available at Barnes and Noble. He serves on the board of Sustaining Land Trust, an organization dedicated to land conservation, and other 501(c)(3) organizations.
Mr. Brown has earned from Martindale-Hubbell the rating of "A-V", the highest rating both as to legal ability and general reputation.
Curtis earned his JurisDoctor degree in 1976 from The University of Texas School of Law; and completed comparative law studies at the University of Oxford.
More information can be found at his website, CurtisLBrown.com.
Mr. Brown has lectured on various tax and legal topics, including as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Baylor Law School, State Bar of Texas and local bar association seminars, SMU Law School and Texas Tech Law School, and has authored numerous articles including Conservation Contributions: New Incentives, New Perspectives (2009), also available at Barnes and Noble. He serves on the board of Sustaining Land Trust, an organization dedicated to land conservation, and other 501(c)(3) organizations.
Mr. Brown has earned from Martindale-Hubbell the rating of "A-V", the highest rating both as to legal ability and general reputation.
Curtis earned his JurisDoctor degree in 1976 from The University of Texas School of Law; and completed comparative law studies at the University of Oxford.
More information can be found at his website, CurtisLBrown.com.
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