An easement is a legal right for someone, often a utility provider, a council, or a neighbouring property owner, to use part of your land for a specific purpose, even though you own it.
Common examples include a drainage easement that lets stormwater or sewer infrastructure run under part of your yard, a right of way that lets a neighbour access their property across a corner of yours, or an easement for power or telecommunications infrastructure. These are usually registered on the property’s title, which means they transfer with the land when it is sold, not with the previous owner.
An easement does not necessarily stop you from using that part of your land day to day, but it can limit what you are allowed to build there. A drainage easement running through your backyard, for example, might mean you cannot build a shed, pool or extension over it without approval, because the authority holding the easement needs to be able to access it if needed.
Easements are usually visible on a title search or a full property title document, along with a plan showing roughly where they run. If you are seriously considering a property, it is worth checking whether any easements exist and understanding what they actually restrict before you plan an extension, a pool or a shed around them.
This is exactly the kind of detail our Property Review service is designed to help you look into, alongside other planning and title information relevant to a specific property. For anything that affects your legal rights over the land, a conveyancer or solicitor is the appropriate professional to confirm the detail.
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