Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Illinois

The two owners need to decide on a number of things: dimensions, purpose/use and potential changes in use, upkeep and maintenance, replacement, duration and events or circumstances that might result in termination and whether the easement will "run with the land" (ie. pass through successive landowners) and impact on both present value (for real estate tax purposes) as well as future value (in case of sale), what if anything can be built on or over the easement area, whether others can use it, intensity of use, whether it is just for one to use or both....

Normally one land owner's property will be "burdened" (the "servient" tenament) and the other will be "benefited" (the "dominant" tenament). While easements can be completely oral / unwritten in nature, it is the better course to have a written agreement put together with some flexibility built in for circumstances that may for one reason or another over time necessitate modifications. Properly documenting the easement, and then seriously considering recording it, are part of the process.

Illinois has no law requiring one land owner to give or grant another land owner an easement that may be seen as "needed" for one of them, such as a means of access. Public utility companies have the right to serve many properties from one, however, depending on a number of factors.

So if the parties are in fundamental agreement to create an easement, it is time for one to have an attorney skilled in these matters to propose an easement to the other and, hopefully in order to achieve the most reasonable agreement for both, that party to have his or her own attorney also review it.