What is an Easement, Rights of Way, Drainage, and Access Explained

What is an Easement?

An easement is a right that one piece of land has over another. It allows the owner of one property, the dominant tenement, to use part of another property, the servient tenement, in a specified way. Easements are attached to the land, not the individual owner, so they pass automatically on sale and bind successive owners.

The most familiar examples are rights of way: a footpath across a neighbour's garden, a shared driveway, or a track leading to a field. But easements cover a far wider range of rights, including drainage, the passage of utilities, rights to light, and rights of support.

Types of Easement

Rights of Way: Entitle the dominant owner to pass across the servient land, on foot only, for vehicles, or both. The precise extent of the right matters enormously.

Drainage and Utility Easements: Most properties have pipes, drains, or cables running beneath neighbouring land. Where those belong to a private owner rather than a statutory undertaker, the right to maintain and use them may be secured by an easement.

Right to Light: Can arise where a window has received natural daylight for at least 20 years without interruption. It does not guarantee all light, only that a sufficient level for ordinary use is maintained.

Rights of Support: Properties sharing a party wall may have rights of support, the right for one structure to rely on another for physical stability.

How Easements Are Created

A prescriptive easement arises through long use. If a right has been exercised openly, continuously, and without permission for at least 20 years, a court may find that an easement has been acquired.

Easements and Conveyancing

Your solicitor should identify all easements that benefit and burden the property from the title register, title plan, and associated deeds. Key questions:

• Does the property rely on an easement for access? A property without a documented right of access is almost impossible to mortgage.
• Does an easement cross your land? A drainage pipe running under your garden may restrict your ability to build over it.
• Is the easement adequately defined? Vague wording is a common cause of neighbour disputes.

Property Passport UK draws together title data from HM Land Registry, providing a useful starting point for identifying what is registered before you instruct solicitors for full due diligence.

Extinguishing an Easement

Easements can come to an end through merger (where both properties come into common ownership), express release by deed, or, very rarely, abandonment. Simply not using an easement for a few years does not extinguish it.