ABA Family Legal Guide

Home Ownership

Property Rights and Restrictions

Your Property Rights

What is an easement?

An easement on your property indicates that someone else may have a right to use part of your property for a specific purpose. A common example is a power company's easement to run a power line over your backyard. The developer normally establishes these types of easements when the subdivision is platted or the house is built in order to provide utilities to the development.

Neighbors also may have an easement on your property. They might have an easement to use your driveway to get to their house (a positive easement) or one that restricts you from blocking their view of the lake (a negative easement). Or they might have a profit (short for the French term profit a prendre, which means "profit to be taken"), allowing them to remove something from your property, such as raspberries, coal, or timber.