Easements & Boundary Disputes Attorney in Santa Ana, California

Poet Robert Frost wrote that “Good fences make good neighbors.” It is often where that fence is placed that might cause a feud between them.

Legal disputes over property boundaries and easements are common, and laws regarding them are complex. Whether you are having a property line dispute with a neighbor or an easement issue with a local governmental entity, you should seek advice from an attorney knowledgeable about boundary and easement disputes.

At Martinez Law Office, I have helped clients for more than 40 years resolve disputes about what is their property and what is someone else’s.

Easements vs. Boundaries in California

Easements

An easement is the right for one person to use property that belongs to someone else. The easement holder cannot occupy the property but may use it, for example, to access their property. They are also required to maintain the property. The owner of the property may also continue to use the easement and cannot obstruct the holder from using it.

There are several types of easements in California:

• Utility Easement — This is provided to a utility to run electrical, water, gas, or other lines through the owner’s property. The owner can continue to use or build on the property so long as activities do not interfere with the operation of the utility lines.
• Private Easement — A property owner can sell an easement through their land to others who want to run something through the property, often to save money. For example, someone building a house may purchase a private easement to run their sewer line through because going through that property may be the shortest distance.
• Easement by Necessity — At times, someone needs to cross property owned by someone else to get to their own property. For example, someone buys a piece of land in the middle of parcels owned by others. They would be entitled to an easement by necessity to get to their property.
• Prescriptive Easement — If someone uses another person’s property over time, “open and continuously,” they may acquire a prescriptive easement. If more than one person uses the property to access their own property, they may all acquire a prescriptive easement over time. The owner of the easement property can avoid a prescriptive easement issue down the road by having a signed agreement with those using the easement for limited, revocable use.
• Equitable Easement - This type of easement is imposed on a landowner in favor of an adjacent landowner by a court after balancing the interests of the parties. It is crafted to the situation that gives rise to the dispute. Sometimes the equitable easement order requires payment for the use of the easement by the dominant estate to the subservient estate.
• View Easement - With property along the coast or upon hills or in the mountains, view easements are common. They preserve the value of up-hill or coastal property by protecting the views from those properties of the ocean, a lake, a mountain, a valley, a river or some other expansive view. Views of properties usually add significant premium value to a property and these easements prevent downhill property owners from erecting structures or growing trees above a certain height that would obstruct the view of the uphill property.
• Sound Easement - Where property is near an industrial area or an airport or a freeway or super highway, a municipality or an adjacent owner can obtain a sound easement that allows the adjacent owner or municipality or airport to exceed the allowable noise levels for the area. This type of easement is usually accompanied by efforts to mitigate the sound (i.e., a sound wall, or improvements to the subservient estate such as air conditioning and double or triple pane windows and insulation).