Michigan easement laws let one party use another party’s land for a defined purpose, and they can be created in writing, by long use, or by legal necessity. Once an easement exists, it attaches to the land rather than the person, so it can affect what you build, how you reach your property, and what a future buyer will pay. The rules come from a mix of Michigan statutes and court decisions, and small missteps — a vague description, a missed recording, a delayed complaint — can cost you access or money.
How Easements Are Created
There are three ways an easement comes into existence in Michigan: an express written grant, an implication from how a parcel was used before it was split, or a prescriptive claim based on 15 years of adverse use. How the easement was created controls how broad the rights are and how easily someone can challenge them later.
Express Easements
An express easement is written down and signed. Michigan’s Statute of Frauds requires any contract involving an interest in land to be in writing and signed by the granting party.1Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws Section 566.108 – Statute of Frauds; Contract for Interest in Lands An easement is an interest in land, so a verbal agreement to let a neighbor use your driveway does not create an enforceable easement. Express easements typically appear in a deed or in a standalone easement agreement, and they should describe the location, dimensions, and permitted uses precisely.
Vague language causes long-term problems. Michigan courts read unambiguous easement language as written, without outside evidence. When the language is ambiguous, courts look to surrounding circumstances to determine what the parties intended.2Michigan Courts. Smith v Straughn, COA No. 345391 Spending time on precise drafting is cheaper than litigation later.
Implied Easements
When a single owner splits a parcel and one piece was visibly serving the other before the split, an easement can be implied even without written language. A shared driveway that has been the only access to a back parcel for years is the classic example. If the seller divides the property and never mentions the driveway, the buyer of the back parcel may still hold an easement across the front one.
Michigan courts have historically required three things: the use between the two parcels must have existed before the division, it must have been apparent at the time of the split, and it must have been necessary to the enjoyment of the parcel claiming the easement. The Michigan Supreme Court applied a strict necessity standard, meaning the use had to be genuinely required for reasonable enjoyment, not merely convenient.3Michigan Law Review. Real Property – Easements – Implied Grant of Right of Way
Prescriptive Easements
Prescriptive easements work like adverse possession, but for use instead of ownership. If someone uses your land openly, continuously, adversely, and without your permission for 15 years, they can acquire a legal right to keep using it.4Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws Section 600.5801 – Limitation on Actions; Time Periods The 15-year period comes from Michigan’s general statute of limitations for actions to recover land.
The proof required is heavy. Michigan courts demand “clear and cogent” evidence, a standard substantially higher than the usual preponderance test.5Michigan Courts. Astemborski v Manetta, COA No. 352066 The claimant must show that the use was tied to a specific portion of the land, adverse to the owner’s rights, open enough that the owner knew or should have known, and uninterrupted for the full 15 years.
One boundary worth knowing: prescriptive easements cannot be claimed against government land. Michigan law bars these claims against municipal corporations, political subdivisions, and county road commissions.6Michigan Legislature. MCL Section 600.5821 – Limitation on Actions Decades of walking a path across county land will not give you a legal right to keep doing it.
Types That Change Who Benefits and For How Long
Beyond how an easement is created, its type controls who benefits, whether it transfers when the property is sold, and how long it lasts.
Appurtenant Easements and Easements in Gross
An appurtenant easement benefits a specific parcel of land. If your property has the right to cross a neighbor’s land to reach the road, that right belongs to whoever owns your parcel, not to you personally. When you sell, the buyer inherits it. The benefiting property is the dominant estate; the burdened property is the servient estate.
An easement in gross belongs to a person or entity rather than a parcel. Utility easements are the common example: the electric company holds the right to run lines across your land, and that right is attached to the company. Commercial easements in gross are generally transferable, which is how utilities can be sold or restructured without losing access. Personal easements in gross, such as a neighbor’s permission to fish in your pond, are usually non-transferable and end when the holder dies.
Easements by Necessity
When a property has no access to a public road, Michigan law can create an easement by necessity across neighboring land. This usually happens when a larger parcel is subdivided and one lot ends up landlocked. The necessity must exist at the time of the division, not because of something the landlocked owner did later.7Michigan Legislature. House Bill 4981 – Easements Over State-Owned Land An easement by necessity lasts only as long as the necessity does. If the landlocked parcel later gains direct road access, the easement terminates.
Conservation Easements
A conservation easement restricts development to protect natural resources, wildlife habitat, farmland, or historic features. The owner voluntarily gives up certain development rights, usually to a land trust or government agency, but keeps ownership. Conservation easements are almost always permanent and bind future owners.
Recording and What Title Searches Miss
Michigan follows a race-notice recording system. An unrecorded easement is void against a later buyer who pays fair value, records first, and had no knowledge of the earlier interest. If you receive an express easement and never record it with the county register of deeds, a later buyer of the servient property could take the land free of your easement.
Implied and prescriptive easements are not created through recorded documents, so title searches often miss them entirely. Standard title insurance policies typically exclude coverage for easements not shown in public records. A buyer who relies only on title insurance can find out after closing that a neighbor holds a prescriptive right across the property, with no coverage for the loss.
Before buying property in Michigan, a professional title search will surface recorded easements. Physically inspecting the land and asking neighbors about informal access arrangements catches the ones that a search alone will not. A surveyor can mark easement boundaries and flag encroachments.
What Each Side Can and Cannot Do
An easement is a limited interest with clear boundaries on both sides. Michigan courts enforce those limits closely.
Scope of Use
The holder’s use is limited to the purposes for which the easement was granted and must impose “as little burden as possible” on the servient estate owner. At the same time, the holder is entitled to everything reasonably necessary to enjoy the easement.2Michigan Courts. Smith v Straughn, COA No. 345391 A roadway easement lets you drive and maintain the road in passable condition. It does not let you widen it into two lanes or pave it without authorization.
The servient estate owner keeps broad rights too. They can use the easement area for any purpose that does not unreasonably interfere with the holder.2Michigan Courts. Smith v Straughn, COA No. 345391 Planting flowers along the edge of an access road is probably fine. Building a fence across it is not. Gates are a frequent flashpoint. Michigan case law holds that a servient owner cannot install a locked gate across an easement unless the right to do so was reserved, and even then the gate must be reasonably necessary and not motivated by spite.
Maintenance
Unless the easement agreement says otherwise, the holder is generally responsible for maintaining the portion of the property they use. For a shared driveway, the holder keeps the surface in reasonable repair. The servient owner has no obligation to maintain the easement for the holder’s benefit unless the parties agreed to that.
When multiple parties share an easement, Michigan courts first look to any written cost-sharing agreement. Without one, costs are typically divided in proportion to each party’s use. Disputes over what counts as basic maintenance versus a major improvement that non-consenting co-users cannot be forced to fund often end up in court.
When an Easement Is Blocked
If the servient owner blocks or unreasonably interferes with an easement, the holder can sue for damages, seek an injunction ordering the obstruction removed, or both.8Michigan Courts. Warner v Scavo, COA No. 274266 Courts can also issue declaratory judgments clarifying each side’s rights when the fight is about scope rather than outright blockage.
Injunctive relief is what most holders want because it forces the obstruction to stop. Michigan courts treat injunctions as extraordinary. To get one, the holder generally must show that money damages would not be adequate and that there is a real, imminent danger of irreparable injury.8Michigan Courts. Warner v Scavo, COA No. 274266 A locked gate cutting off the only access to a public road easily meets that standard. Minor, intermittent interference may draw damages instead.
Timing matters. A court can refuse equitable relief if the holder waited too long to enforce or acquiesced to the interference. If a neighbor builds a shed partially blocking your easement and you say nothing for years, you may lose the right to demand it be torn down.
How Easements End
Easements are durable but not automatically permanent. Michigan recognizes several ways one can end.
Mutual Agreement
Both parties can agree in writing to terminate an easement, documented in a formal release. If the original easement was recorded, the release also needs to be recorded, or future title searches will still show the easement as active.
Abandonment
Abandonment requires more than stopping use. Under Michigan law, the party claiming abandonment must prove both an intent to give up the easement and external acts putting that intention into effect. Not using a right-of-way for many years is not, by itself, abandonment.9Michigan Courts. Department of Natural Resources v Carmody-Lahti, COA No. 287802 Building a permanent structure that blocks your own easement, or letting the servient owner build across it, could show that intent. Neglect will not.
Merger
When one person or entity ends up owning both the dominant and servient estates, the easement is extinguished by merger. You cannot hold an easement over your own land. If the properties are later separated again, the easement does not automatically come back; a new one would have to be created.
Other Endings
An easement can expire on a specified date if the grant included one. Condemnation through eminent domain can end an easement when the government acquires the servient property, though the holder may be entitled to compensation. For easements over state-managed land, Michigan law provides that if the benefiting property is later subdivided under the Subdivision Control Act, the easement automatically terminates.10Michigan Legislature. MCL Section 324.2128
Effect on Property Value
An easement can raise or lower a property’s value depending on which side of it you are on. A beneficial easement, like guaranteed road access to a landlocked parcel, can make otherwise unusable land valuable. Being the servient owner, with someone else’s utility lines or access road crossing your land, typically reduces what buyers will pay.
Appraisers measure the impact with a “before and after” method: they value the property as if the easement did not exist, then value it with the easement in place. The difference is the easement’s effect on value. This is the standard approach for public acquisitions, and private buyers should insist on a similar analysis when purchasing burdened property. Easements that restrict development have the largest impact. A conservation easement permanently preventing commercial development on farmland will significantly reduce market value even though the owner keeps ownership and can keep farming. Utility easements along a property edge tend to have minimal impact because they rarely interfere with the primary use.