Maryland easement law lets one party use a specific portion of another person’s land for a defined purpose, and once an easement is properly established it can bind every future owner of the burdened property. Easements arise in a handful of well-defined ways, they carry limits as well as rights, and they end only through specific legal events. Knowing which category your situation falls into is usually the whole ballgame.
How Easements Get Created
Maryland recognizes three main routes: an express written grant, an easement implied from the circumstances, and a prescriptive easement earned through long-term use.
Express Easements
An express easement is a written agreement between two owners that one may use a defined part of the other’s land. Maryland’s Statute of Frauds, at Real Property § 5-103, requires any grant of an interest in land to be in writing and signed by the grantor.1Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Real Property Title 5 – Section 5-103 – Assignment, Grant, or Surrender of Interest in Property A verbal promise to let a neighbor cross your lot will not survive a challenge.
Express easements usually appear in a deed and are recorded in the county land records so the public has notice of them.2Maryland Courts. Land Records Recording matters because an unrecorded easement may not bind a later buyer who took the property without knowing about it. Any deed recorded in Maryland must be prepared or supervised by a Maryland-licensed attorney or certified by a party named in the document, and a deed granting an easement to a public utility or government agency must contain an accurate description and reference the recording location of the burdened property’s deed.3Maryland General Assembly. Maryland Code Real Property Title 3 – Section 3-104
Implied Easements
Sometimes an easement exists even without a written document. Maryland courts will find an implied easement when the circumstances at the time property was divided make clear the access was intended or needed. The typical requirements are that both parcels were once owned by the same person, that the use existed before the split, and that continued use is reasonably necessary.
Courts draw a line between implied grants and implied reservations. When the seller conveys a parcel and the buyer needs the implied access, the standard is more forgiving. When the seller keeps the parcel that needs access and tries to reserve a right across land they sold, courts apply a stricter test.4CaseMine. Dalton v. Real Estate and Improvement Company of Baltimore City
Prescriptive Easements
A prescriptive easement is earned through use, not agreement. If a person uses your land openly, continuously, and without permission for 20 years, they can claim an enforceable right to keep using it in the same way. They do not gain ownership of the land itself, only the right to the specific use they have been making.
The claimant must prove three things: the use was adverse (without permission), exclusive (not dependent on someone else’s rights), and uninterrupted for the full 20 years.5FindLaw. Turner v. Bouchard Uninterrupted does not mean daily. It means use that is regular for the type of access involved, without the landowner successfully blocking it.
Two points trip up many claims. First, permissive use never ripens into a prescriptive easement. If the landowner ever gave verbal permission, that permission defeats prescription no matter how many decades passed.6CaseMine. Shuggars v. Brake Second, when the disputed land is unenclosed woodland or wild land, Maryland courts flip the usual presumption. Ordinary use across ordinary land is presumed adverse after 20 years; use across woodland is presumed permissive, and the person claiming the easement bears the burden of proving otherwise.5FindLaw. Turner v. Bouchard
Who the Easement Belongs To
Every easement is either appurtenant or in gross, and the difference controls what happens when property changes hands.
An appurtenant easement is attached to a piece of land, not to a person. It involves two properties: the dominant estate that benefits and the servient estate that carries the burden. When either property is sold, the easement travels with the land automatically. A new buyer of the dominant estate inherits the right; a new buyer of the servient estate takes the property subject to it. Maryland law presumes an easement is appurtenant unless the agreement clearly states otherwise.
An easement in gross belongs to a specific person or entity rather than to any parcel. Utility easements are the common example: the electric company holds the right, and the right is tied to the company. Easements in gross are generally not transferable unless the agreement expressly permits it, and if the holder dissolves the easement may end entirely.
Landlocked Property and Easements by Necessity
When a parcel has no access to a public road except through a neighbor’s land, Maryland courts will create an easement by necessity. The doctrine rests on the policy that land should be usable and the presumption that no seller intended to make a parcel unreachable. In Condry v. Laurie, the Court of Appeals upheld an easement by necessity where the only access ran across the neighbor’s land and the neighbor tried to block it.7CaseMine. Condry v. Laurie
To qualify, the landlocked parcel and the surrounding land must once have been owned by the same person, and the necessity must have existed at the time of the split. Mere inconvenience is not enough. And if alternative access later opens up, such as a new public road, the easement by necessity ends on its own.
What the Holder Can and Can’t Do
An easement grants a specific right for a specific purpose, not open-ended use of the burdened land. A right of way for foot and vehicle access does not authorize parking equipment, storing materials, or widening the path beyond what the easement contemplates. Pushing use beyond the original scope can trigger a lawsuit from the burdened owner and, in serious cases, cost the holder the easement.
Maintenance generally falls on the easement holder unless the agreement says something different. Some express easements make this explicit. The deed at issue in Turner v. Bouchard stated that grantors had “no duty to maintain or to keep in repair said easement property.”8Maryland Judiciary. Turner v. Bouchard Opinion The practical result is that the person using a driveway easement is usually the one grading, plowing, and paying for repairs.
The burdened owner keeps full ownership of the land and can use it in any way that does not unreasonably interfere with the easement. Planting along the edge of an access path is generally fine. Installing a locked gate across it is generally not. Both sides owe each other reasonable accommodation, and most disputes come down to competing views of what is reasonable.
How an Easement Ends
Easements do not automatically last forever, but the person claiming an easement is gone bears the burden of proving it.
Mutual release is the cleanest method. Both owners sign a written release and record it in the county land records. If a seller tells you an easement was “released years ago,” ask to see the recorded release before closing.
Merger happens when the same person comes to own both the dominant and servient parcels. The easement disappears because you cannot hold an easement over your own land. If ownership later splits again along the same boundaries, the original easement does not come back. A new easement would have to be created.
Abandonment requires more than nonuse. Maryland courts demand clear and convincing evidence that the holder intended to permanently give up the right. A driveway growing over with weeds for a few years is not enough on its own. Tearing out the driveway, building a structure that blocks the path, and telling the neighbor the access is no longer needed would likely qualify. Assuming a long-unused easement has quietly vanished is where landowners most often miscalculate.
End of necessity applies only to easements by necessity. When the landlocked condition is resolved, whether by a new road or by the owner acquiring adjoining land with frontage, the easement terminates on its own.
Easements When You Buy or Sell
Existing easements can meaningfully change what a buyer can do with a property, so Maryland law requires disclosure. Under Real Property § 10-702, sellers of residential property must either provide a disclosure statement listing known defects and encumbrances or a disclaimer statement selling the property as is. The disclosure form specifically asks whether the seller knows of any recorded or unrecorded easements, other than utility easements, affecting the property.9Maryland Division of State Documents. Maryland Residential Property Disclosure and Disclaimer Statement
A buyer who discovers an undisclosed easement after closing may have grounds for a breach of contract claim or, in serious cases, rescission. But sellers can only disclose what they know, and prescriptive easements may not appear in any recorded document at all.
Title insurance helps, with limits. A standard owner’s policy covers matters that show up in the public record. Recorded easements typically appear as special exceptions to coverage, meaning the title company is disclosing the easement but not insuring against it. Unrecorded easements, including prescriptive rights built up through long use, generally fall outside standard coverage because the title search only reaches public records. An extended policy or a specific survey endorsement may close some of the gap. Do not assume a title policy protects you against every easement surprise.
When Neighbors Disagree
Most easement fights are scope fights. One side thinks the easement permits more than the other side accepts: the neighbor who paves and widens a gravel path, the utility that clears trees outside its corridor, the owner who installs a gate across an access easement.
When the easement language is clear, courts enforce it as written. The harder cases involve rights described in general terms without precise boundaries. In Rogers v. P-M Hunter’s Ridge, LLC, the Court of Appeals addressed a right of way described broadly in the original deed but built and used in a specific location for years. The court held that once a generally described right of way has been fixed in a particular location through long-term use, that location becomes as established as if the deed had specified it by metes and bounds. Changing the location requires agreement from both owners.10Justia Law. Rogers v. P-M Hunter’s Ridge, LLC
Before filing suit, weigh mediation or direct negotiation. Easement litigation is expensive, and courts have wide discretion when interpreting ambiguous language. A negotiated fix, recorded as a modified easement agreement, often costs less and gives both sides something they can live with. If litigation becomes unavoidable, a court will look at the original intent, the parties’ conduct over time, and any documentation showing what was agreed to and how the easement was actually used.
A Note on Conservation Easements
Conservation easements are a separate category. They are voluntary, permanent restrictions on development that a landowner donates to a qualified land trust or government agency to protect natural resources, historic sites, or open space. They come with federal and Maryland tax benefits, and the rules governing them are distinct from the access and utility easements covered above. If you are considering donating one, the analysis is a different conversation than the one about a neighbor’s driveway.