2.2. Easements.

Listening 2

One of the key terms mentioned above is easement, which is a right, acquired for access to or use of another person's land for a specific purpose. In the following listening exercise, you will hear an excerpt of a seminar held by a lawyer as part of a training course for estate agents. It is the lawyer's task to provide basic legal information on issues, which the agents may one day encounter in the course of their work. In the excerpt, the lawyer presents a general classification of easements, explaining the different types his listeners need to know about.

Pre-listening task. Before you listen, discuss this question.

What other legal issues might an estate agent need to be informed about?

Post-listening task. Listen and answer these questions.

1. What is the purpose of a temporary easement?

2. Explain what is meant by open, notorious and continuous use.

3. What does an easement by necessity refer to?

Ex. 1. Complete these sentences, in which the speaker classifies information. Use no more than three words for each space.

1. Generally speaking, …………. two fundamental types of easements: temporary and permanent.

2. Permanent easements can be …………… three common types. These three are the easement in gross, the prescriptive easement and the easement appurtenant.

3. This ……… those easements which are given to a quasi-public corporation, such as the electric or phone company.

4. ………….. of an easement appurtenant is called an easement by necessity.

Ex. 2. Read the following definitions of different types of easements and put the terms in proper places.

Public and private easement Appurtenant easement Easement in gross Prescriptive easement Implied and express easement Easement by estoppel Easement by necessity Restrictive easement

An easement is a non-possessory interest to use real property in possession of another person for a stated purpose.

Unlike a lease, an easement does not give the holder a right of "possession" of the property. A license, which is a lesser interest than an easement, only gives a holder a personal privilege to use land of another for a limited purpose. For example, a license is given when a landowner gives his neighbor a verbal permission to park a car on his driveway, or to park an automobile for a limited period. A license can be terminated much more easily than easements. A license is similar to but different from a wayleave (the right to transport through or fly over the other’s land).

An easement also differs from a license in that the benefits of most easements (appurtenant easement) flow to an adjacent parcel of land, not to a specific person (easement in gross). As such, the owner of the dominant tenement will continue to enjoy the easement, even if he is not the initial owner of the tenement.

(1) ………….. is held by private individuals or entities. It grants an easement for a public use, for example, to allow the public an access over a parcel owned by an individual.

In the U.S., (2) …………… is one that benefits the dominant, adjoining land. An easement in gross is personal to the holder of the easement and does not pass automatically to another person when the easement holder's property is sold and bought.

(3) …………….. benefits an individual or a legal entity, rather than a dominant estate. The easement can be for a personal (an easement to use a boat ramp) or a commercial use (an easement given to a railway to build and maintain a rail line across property). In earlier times, an easement in gross was neither assignable nor inheritable, but today commercial easements are freely alienable. This is not true in England and Wales where easements cannot be in gross.

An easement may be created in a number of ways. In most jurisdictions in the U.S., if a person regularly uses someone else's property over a statutory period without the consent of the property owner, he acquires (4) …………... It cannot give the holder of the easement a right to protect a view over a neighboring property no matter how long a property owner has had a view over the neighbor's property.

An easement may be (5) ……………... It may be "granted" or "reserved" in a deed or other legal instrument. Alternatively, it may be incorporated by reference to a subdivision plan by "dedication" or in a restrictive covenant in the agreement of an owners association.

Under an (6) …………….., a grantor and an abutter (the owner of adjacent parcel of land) may be estoppel from denying the existence of a "paper street", which is shown on a subdivision plan, but has not yet been developed to become an actual road.

Parcels without access to a public way may have an easement of access over adjacent land, if crossing that land is absolutely necessary to reach the landlocked parcel. There is an (7) ………… arising from the original subdivision of the land for continuous and obvious use of the adjacent parcel (e.g., for access to a road, or to a source of water).

(8) …………… are also called "negative easements", as their "use" is normally prohibitive. A "negative easement" entitles an owner (A) to prevent another landowner (B) from performing a particular act on (B's) land. They must be in writing (they cannot be "implied") and in order to "run with the land" (to pass to future purchasers) must be recorded. An example would be a common "vehicular non-access" easement as shown along a main highway where the governmental entity needs to restrict access. Therefore a restrictive easement is a condition placed on land by its owner or by government that in some way limits the land's use, usually regarding the types of structures which may be built there or what may be done with the ground itself. For instance, if a leased piece of land is not prevented by zoning laws (probably because it is not in a township) from having people inhabit it, and the government feels that for some reason living there would be especially unsafe, it may place a restrictive easement on the property stating that no one may live there. Restrictive easements are also frequently placed on wetlands (i.e., a conservation easement) to prevent them from being destroyed by development.

Ex. 3 Read the questions and the extracts from the journal article about adverse possession, a situation where squatters occupy property or land that they do not own. Which sections (A, B, C or D) does each question (1-6) refer to? You will need to use some of the letters more than once.

0 Possession necessarily involves an element of intention.

1 It is possible that a squatter will seek to prevent an owner from gaining access to the land.

2 The fact that a person is a title owner does not necessarily mean he is the possessor.

3 Even if an individual is willing to pay rent, he can still be considered in adverse possession.

4 A common misconception about the attitude of the squatter has been clarified.

5 One factor is determining possession relates to the ongoing use of the land in a given way.

6 The intention of the owner is immaterial when establishing possession.