Also known as: rights in re aliena · ius in re aliena · jura in re aliena · servitude · easement
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A right held in property that belongs to another. The right permits its holder to make specified uses of the land or to prevent the owner from making certain uses.
Owner Elena grants neighbor Marco an affirmative easement to draw water from a spring on her land. Marco exercises the right by installing a pipe and taking water, conduct he would lack the privilege to perform without the easement.
Raphael Rivera owns a landlocked parcel and obtains an easement allowing him to cross Renee Rogers's adjacent lot to reach the public road. Rivera uses the path for ingress and egress, an action he would otherwise lack the privilege to perform.
Roberto Reyes grants Ricardo Rojas a permanent right to cross his field to reach a fishing stream. The parties treat the right as irrevocable, so Rojas may continue the crossings even after Reyes later objects.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Rita Russell buys land from a seller whose deed makes no mention of an earlier easement granted to a neighboring parcel. Because the easement appears only in a deed outside Russell's chain of title, she takes the land free of the burden.
Rajesh Rao's farm benefits from a recorded drainage easement across Redline Automotive's neighboring property. The easement was created to serve Rao's land, so it passes automatically to any later purchaser of that farm.
Rising Sun Electronics purchases a lot subject to a recorded declaration requiring payment of assessments for shared maintenance. The obligation runs with the land, binding the company and all future owners regardless of personal use of the facilities.
A right in re aliena grants only limited privileges or restrictions on land owned by another, while full ownership includes the entire bundle of rights to possess, use, and dispose of the property.
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An easement is appurtenant when it is created to benefit and does benefit the possessor of a particular tract of land in the use of that land.
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Under the chain-of-title doctrine a purchaser receives constructive notice only of instruments appearing in the chain through which title is claimed, so an easement recorded outside that chain does not bind the purchaser.
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Under the Restatement (Third) of Property the term easement includes an irrevocable license to enter and use land in the possession of another.
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…must forever maintain its property in its present state.[^maj-5] The property has been thus subjected to a nonconsensual servitude not borne by any neighboring or similar properties.[^maj-6] B Appellees have thus destroyed—in a literal sense, “taken”— substantial property rights of Penn Central. While the term…