Easements spell out how someone else can access property that they do not own. Typically these easements are drawn up between a property owner and someone who stands to benefit from land access. An example we commonly use is giving individuals permission to walk across your property in order to access public hunting land on the other side. This easement is beneficial for the accessing party, and it clearly spells out how the land owner wishes the land be accessed.
A prescriptive easement is a bit different. An easement by prescription develops out of prolonged use without express permission from the land owner. Oftentimes this use is done unknowingly, and if the access goes on for long enough, you can establish a prescriptive easement even if the other party doesn’t agree to your access.
This may not seem fair to the land owner, but because of this, Minnesota makes it pretty hard for a prescriptive easement to be established. Still, we want to lay out how these easements by prescription can be established under Minnesota law.
Prescriptive Easement Establishment In Minnesota
Prescriptive easements establish your ability to use someone else’s property without their permission. As you might imagine, this isn’t something that the courts would want to be established with ease. After all, if you want to access someone else’s property, there are countless simpler legal ways to do it.
An easement by prescription can only be established in a specific and obvious manner. You can’t access someone’s property in the middle of the night for years and then claim that you have right to this access because you’ve been doing it so long without issue. The law requires that the use be “normal” in nature, like a walking path or a driveway used clearly and obviously.
The threshold for establishing a prescriptive easement is very high, but let’s go through an example to better explain how one can come to exist. Let’s say, for example, you have a driveway or walking path that you believed to be within the border of your property, only to find out it’s actually three feet over the boundary line into your neighbor’s property. You may or may not be aware that this path is on your neighbor’s property, but you use this pathway regularly. The property owner cannot be aware that this pathway is on their property, or if they do, they cannot have discussed the matter with you, as then permission or a lack thereof would be established.
If all these factors are present, and you use that pathway or driveway regularly for at least 15 years, you may be able to claim a prescriptive easement. If any of these factors are missing, or you do not hit the 15-year threshold, then you’ll need to find a different way to continue accessing this land, or you may be forced to fix a development that has been built on a neighbor’s property.
For more information about prescriptive easements or more common easements in the world of commercial real estate, reach out to the team at Commercial Partners today at (612) 337-2470.