Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Washington

Re: Exclusive Easement

An easement is the right to use the property of another, usually for "ingress, egress and utilities" but it can vary from that.

In english, that means if you cannot reach your property without crossing somebody else's, the law will allow you to cross their property to get to yours. And bring powerand water, too.

The word exclusive can mean lots of things, including that the easement is just granted to one person.

However, easements "run with the land", which means that when the owner sells, his buyers, the new owners will also get the same easement the seller had.

If the easement is badly drafted, and attempts to limit the grant to one individual, the law will grant an easement by prescription to the new owner.

What the new owner cannot do is exceed the scope of the easement. This means that if it started life as a one lane road, the new owner cannot expand it to a four lane road and add a apartment complex to his property and expect the servient tenement to absorb the traffic.

That's an exaggeration, but I hope you see my point.

Elizabeth Powell