An easement is a right to use another’s property for a specified purpose. It runs with the land in most cases, binding successors, which is why it is a title matter rather than a contract matter.

How they arise. By express grant or reservation, in a deed or separate instrument, which is the clean case. By implication, where a parcel is divided and prior apparent use is reasonably necessary to the part conveyed. By necessity, most often for access to a landlocked parcel. By prescription, through open, notorious, continuous and adverse use for the statutory period. And by estoppel, where permission was relied on to the user’s detriment.

Scope is the recurring dispute. An easement for access to a farm may not support access to a subdivision. Courts ask what the parties intended and whether the increased burden is a change in degree or in kind. Maintenance obligations, if unstated, are generally shared by those benefiting.

How they end. By release, by merger where one owner acquires both parcels, by abandonment shown through conduct rather than mere non-use, and by expiry of a stated term.

Practical guidance. Get the survey. Easements of the implied and prescriptive kind do not appear in the chain of title, and a title commitment’s standard exceptions expressly exclude matters an accurate survey would disclose — which is where these are found.