During the acquisition of a property or at some point while you hold commercial properties, you may be approached by another party who wishes to have access to your land for one reason or another. For example, a business owner may wish to cross through your parking lot in order to make deliveries, or a neighbor may ask to pass through your property on their way to a hunting plot they own on the other side. These arrangements are known as easements, and they explain who, when and for what purpose one party can access another party’s property.
Easements can make life easier for both parties, but as business and personal responsibilities change, one or more parties may wish to alter or end the current easement. Can you move forward with the termination of an easement? What if one party objects to the change? We explain how easements can be altered or ended in today’s blog.
Ending An Easement With Ease
If you’re the one benefiting from the easement, you can typically end this agreement at any time. If you no longer need access to that property, you and any lien holders on the benefitted property can draft and sign a letter that states that the easement is no longer in effect. Ideally you will have the easement grantor sign this agreement as well, especially since there really shouldn’t be a reason for them to object to the termination of access to their property, but it’s not completely necessary. You’re the benefitted party, and if you no longer need to benefit from this agreement, you can draft an easement termination letter. Of course, if both parties agree to end the easement, then they can both simply sign a termination letter.
Easements can also be terminated in a couple other ways. Another common way to enforce the end of an easement is through specifications in the original easement. For example, you may give the city access to your property to install sewer or electrical lines, and the easement may state that this access only extends until the project is complete. You may also outline that an easement agreement will expire on a specific date, but you can’t add this clause after the fact unless both parties agree to the change.
Another way that an easement can be terminated is if the servient simply acquires the burdened property. This is known as a merger, and if a party no longer needs the easement agreement because the property they were accessing is now their property, the agreement is no longer necessary.
Finally, some property owners may seek to end an easement on the grounds that the servient has abandoned their interest in access. However, it’s very difficult to be granted an easement termination simply because you are arguing that the other party no longer uses the easement. They may not use it as frequently, or they may still wish to have access even if they haven’t used the easement in a long time, but this doesn’t mean the grantor can have the easement terminated. Typically the grantor will need to prove that specific action outside of non-use suggests that a servient party no longer wants or needs access to the easement.
Let us help protect your rights or work to terminate an easement if you are unhappy with how the current setup is going. For more information about developing an easement, protecting your interests when entering an easement agreement or working to bring an end to a current easement, reach out to the team at Commercial Partners today at (612) 337-2470.