Question of easements and right of ways!!!!

[hlanelee]

Since my wife passed last year, I have gained full ownership to the 14 acres on the beautiful Salkehatchie Swamp. Her cousin has an easement across to his tract on the other side. Now, here’s what has happened, today I came home and a lowboy was unloading a bulldozer in MY field. I always thought that an easement gave someone permission to cross to their property and to leave their property. Not to stop in the middle and certainly not to use the property of egress as a staging area. What is within my rights as the landowner? Can I sieze vehicles/equipment?

Two years ago my wife asked me to please not main her cousin, as he was family. I agreed, but he is not family now. If he is on my property without my permission, can I take my trusty tire-bat to him? The joys of being a redneck!!!

[danceswithcats]

From Dumaime.org, q.v.

Easement
A right of passage over a neighbor’s land or waterway. An easement is a type of servitude. For every easement, there is a dominant and a servient tenement. Easements are also classified as negative (which prevents the servient land owner from doing certain things) or affirmative easements (the most common, which allows the beneficiary of the easement to do certain things, such as a right-of-way). Although right-of-ways are the most common easements, there are many others such as rights to tunnel under another’s land, to use a washroom, to emit smoke or fumes, to pass over with transmission towers, to access a dock and to access a well.

While I can understand your upset, wait until the damage is actually done. For example, if cousin x finishes his business, and regrades the easement, seeds and straws any bare soil, then my call is: No hurt, no foul. IANAL, but that’s my .02

[danceswithcats]

That was supposed to be Duhaime. Damned lack of edit function.

[John_Carter_of_Mars]

An easement should have a legal description and map with it. Typically, easements are 30 feet wide and take a straight route through your property to the other landowner’s property.

If he’s off the 30 foot easement, he’s tresspassing. I’d try telling him you intend to enforce your rights and that he must stay on the easement. I would probably ask him to cease and desist before breaking out the shotgun, but that’s your call.

[hlanelee]

@danceswithcats

While I can understand your upset, wait until the damage is actually done. For example, if cousin x finishes his business, and regrades the easement, seeds and straws any bare soil, then my call is: No hurt, no foul. IANAL, but that’s my .02

“regrades, seeds, and straws?” What about the hay I had planted? Understand, he was unloading 20 or 30 yards the south of the easement and in the field. :eek: Am I entitled to a smack-down?

[tomndebb]

You have a right to any legal recourse, such as suing for destruction of your crop and petitioning the cops or courts to have his equipment removed imediately I doubt that such a case would be viewed by a prosecutor or jury as the sort of tresspass that allows you to “defend” yourself by force.

As with all legal opinions, message boards are worth every penny you’ve paid for a particular piece of advice (not what you may have paid for membership) and your best bet is to consult with an attorney. (You could, if you wish, make the first attorney you consult the local prosecuting/district attorney who could probably give you a quick reading on what local law enforcement folks are willing to do in such types of squabbles).

(And there is always the possibility that an ignorant contractor is at fault, rather than your “cousin” and you probably do not want to start any blood feuds with the operator’s family.)

[Xema]

Easements vary tremendously. Your very first step should be to get a copy (presumably found in or attached to the deed to your land) and read exactly what it says.

[Polycarp]

FWIW, there are circumstances in case law, just for the record, in which egregious and repeated abuse of an easement has caused a judge to “extinguish” the easement, though such cases are relatively rare. But one can only use an easement for the purposes specified, certainly not for parking equipment nor unloading it on land not included in the easement.