easement, in Anglo-American property law, a right granted by one property owner to another to use a part of his land for a specific purpose.
An easement may be created expressly by a written deed of grant conveying to another the right to use for a specific purpose a certain parcel of land. An easement may also be created when one sells his land to another but reserves for himself the right to future use of a portion of that land. An easement may also be created by implication, when, for example, a term descriptive of an easement is incidentally included in a deed (such as “passageway”—a section of land to be used for passage). An easement by implication also arises when the owner of two or more adjacent parcels of land sells one lot; the buyer acquires an easement to that visible property of the seller necessary to the buyer’s use and enjoyment of his lot, such as a roadway or drainage duct. When created in this manner the easement also arises as an easement of necessity.
In most of the United States and England, statutes permit the creation of an easement by prescription, which arises by virtue of a long, continuous usage of the property of another by a landowner, his ancestors, or prior owners. The length of time necessary for such continued use to ripen into an easement by prescription is specified by the applicable state statute.
When use of the easement is restricted to either one or a few individuals, it is a private easement. Use of a public easement, such as public highways or a portion of private land dedicated by a present or past owner as a public park (also known as a dedication), is not restricted.
An owner of an easement is referred to as the owner of the dominant tenement. The owner on whose land the easement exists is the owner of the servient tenement.