Glossary

Prescriptive Easement

An easement acquired by open, continuous, and adverse use of another's land for a statutorily defined period, granting the user an ongoing right to continue that specific use without acquiring title itself.

Prescriptive easements share the same conceptual roots as adverse possession but result in a nonpossessory use right rather than outright ownership — for example, a neighbor who has driven across a portion of a parcel to reach a rear lot for the statutory period may acquire a prescriptive right to continue doing so, without acquiring the strip of land itself. Because a prescriptive easement can arise without any recorded instrument, it is one of the risks an ALTA survey and a careful physical inspection are designed to surface, since title records alone will not reveal it. Property owners seeking to prevent a prescriptive easement from ripening often post permissive-use signage or grant a revocable license, since permission defeats the "adverse" element required to establish the claim.