California property glossary
Easement
Also called right of way, servitude
Quick answer
An easement is a recorded right for someone else to use part of a property for a specific purpose — access, utilities, drainage, or maintenance. It runs with the land, binds future owners, and can either enable a property's use or eliminate its buildable area.
Key facts
- Two flavors
- Appurtenant easements benefit a neighboring parcel and transfer with it; easements in gross benefit a person or utility
- Where to find them
- Schedule B exceptions on the preliminary title report, plus recorded maps
- Prescriptive easements
- Can arise from open, notorious, continuous, hostile use for the statutory period — without any document
- Maintenance
- Often undocumented; California law provides default cost-sharing rules for shared private roads absent an agreement
- Termination
- By written release, merger of the parcels, express expiration, or abandonment — rarely by simply not using it
What it means
Easements come in several forms — access or ingress-egress, utility, conservation, prescriptive — and can be recorded or, in older cases, unrecorded. Either way, an easement runs with the land regardless of who owns the property.
Shared gravel roads and well-line easements crossing multiple parcels are common across rural Placer, Nevada, and El Dorado county land, often set up decades ago with vague or unrecorded documentation.
Unclear or disputed easements are one of the most common reasons a title company delays or refuses to insure a rural sale. A direct buyer can evaluate and often absorb this kind of risk instead of requiring it fully resolved before closing, which traditional buyers and their lenders typically demand.
Why this matters when you are selling
Easements are the quiet determinant of what a parcel can become. A ten-foot utility easement along a side yard is usually harmless. The same ten feet crossing diagonally through the only flat building area is the difference between a buildable lot and a pasture. Buyers with development intent read the title report before they read the listing, and sellers who have already mapped their easements onto a plot plan control that conversation rather than reacting to it.
Shared access easements produce the most disputes, because the document typically grants the right and says nothing about who maintains the road. California provides default cost-sharing rules for private roads when there is no agreement, but a default rule is a poor substitute for a written one, and disputes among neighbors over grading and gravel are common enough in the foothills to be predictable. A recorded maintenance agreement is a genuine selling point for rural property.
Prescriptive easements matter because they exist without paper. A neighbor who has openly driven across a corner of the property for the statutory period may have acquired a right, and the absence of anything in the title report does not settle it. This cuts both ways — it is also how some parcels have practical access they never documented.
Common mistakes
Reading only the vesting page of the preliminary title report.
Instead: The exceptions in Schedule B are where the easements live. Pull the underlying recorded documents and plot them on a map.
Assuming an unused easement has lapsed.
Instead: Non-use alone rarely terminates an easement. Termination generally requires a release, merger, expiration, or proven abandonment.
Buying or selling shared-road property without a maintenance agreement.
Instead: Get one recorded. Default statutory cost-sharing is better than nothing and far worse than clear written terms.
Granting a casual easement without a legal description.
Instead: An imprecise grant creates a permanent ambiguity. Use a surveyed description and record it.
Questions people ask
Does an easement lower my property value?
It depends entirely on location and burden. A utility easement along a property edge often has negligible effect; an access easement through the middle of the buildable envelope, or one serving several other parcels, can reduce value substantially. Where it sits matters more than that it exists.
Can I build over an easement?
Generally not without the easement holder's consent, and utility holders routinely refuse permanent structures over their facilities. Some agreements permit compatible surface uses such as driveways or landscaping.
Who pays to maintain a shared private road?
Whoever the recorded agreement says. Absent an agreement, California law provides for proportional sharing among users based on use, but enforcing a default rule among neighbors is unpleasant. A recorded agreement is worth pursuing before selling.
How do I remove an easement?
By obtaining a recorded release from the holder, by merging the benefited and burdened parcels under one owner, or by court action where abandonment or expiration can be proven. Simply not using it does not do it.
Bottom line
Pull the recorded easement documents and plot them before listing rural or development property. Where an easement sits determines whether it is a footnote or the single largest constraint on value — and on shared roads, a recorded maintenance agreement is worth more to a buyer than most cosmetic improvements.
Official sources
- California Legislative Information
Civil Code provisions on servitudes, and private road maintenance cost-sharing.
- California Department of Insurance
Title insurance basics, including how Schedule B exceptions work.
Written and maintained by Sierra Property Buyers, a direct property buyer working across Northern California. Last reviewed July 2026. This page is general information about how California property transactions work — it is not legal, tax, or financial advice, and the specifics of any situation should be confirmed with an attorney, a CPA, or the relevant agency.
Have a property this affects?
Tell us the situation and we will tell you plainly whether a direct sale makes sense — including when listing would leave you with more.