A buyer purchases a parcel that benefits from a recorded easement across the neighboring lot. The deed does not mention the easement. What happens to it at closing?

It transfers with the land as an appurtenance

It is extinguished because the deed omits it

The buyer must renegotiate it with the neighbor

It converts to an easement in gross

The owner of the servient tenement sells the burdened parcel to a buyer who never agreed to the recorded easement. The buyer:

Takes subject to the easement, because the burden runs with the land

May charge the dominant owner a fee for continued use

May close the easement after giving one year of notice

Takes free of the easement as a bona fide purchaser

Exam vocabulary · easement in real property

What Is Easement appurtenant in Real Estate?

Definition

An easement appurtenant is the right to use a neighbouring parcel that belongs to the land itself rather than to a person, so it transfers automatically with either property. It needs two parcels: a dominant tenement that benefits and a servient tenement that is burdened.

How the exam tests easement appurtenant

These mirror the phrasing you will see on test day. Answer them, then read the explanation whether or not you got it right.

Easement appurtenant: exam questions1/4

Property ownership

An easement appurtenant requires:

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Every easement appurtenant question, answered

Every question above with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Read the explanations for the ones you answered correctly too. A lucky guess and knowing the rule look identical on a score report. These are sample questions from our larger bank.

1. An easement appurtenant requires:
- AA dominant tenement and a servient tenementcorrect
- BA written license renewed annually
- CPayment of an annual fee to the servient owner
- DTwo parcels held by the same owner
Why: Easements appurtenant benefit one parcel, the dominant tenement, and burden another, the servient tenement. If one person owned both parcels, the easement would be extinguished by merger.
Property ownership
2. A buyer purchases a parcel that benefits from a recorded easement across the neighboring lot. The deed does not mention the easement. What happens to it at closing?
- AIt is extinguished because the deed omits it
- BIt transfers with the land as an appurtenancecorrect
- CThe buyer must renegotiate it with the neighbor
- DIt converts to an easement in gross
Why: An easement appurtenant runs with the land, so it passes automatically on conveyance whether or not the deed names it. That is what makes it an appurtenance rather than a personal right.
Property ownership
3. The owner of the servient tenement sells the burdened parcel to a buyer who never agreed to the recorded easement. The buyer:
- ATakes subject to the easement, because the burden runs with the landcorrect
- BMay charge the dominant owner a fee for continued use
- CMay close the easement after giving one year of notice
- DTakes free of the easement as a bona fide purchaser
Why: The burden of an easement appurtenant runs with the servient land exactly as the benefit runs with the dominant land, so a buyer of the burdened parcel takes subject to it whether or not he agreed. Recording gave him constructive notice, which is what defeats any bona fide purchaser argument.
Property ownership
4. A utility company's right to run power lines across dozens of separate parcels is typically:
- AA license
- BA profit
- CAn easement appurtenant
- DAn easement in grosscorrect
Why: Easements in gross benefit a person or an entity instead of a parcel, so there is no dominant tenement. An easement appurtenant would require a benefited parcel next to or near the burdened land.
Property ownership

Where easement appurtenant sits in the exam vocabulary

Easement appurtenant is a easement in real property, and so are easement in gross, easement by necessity and prescriptive easement. That matters more than it sounds: a multiple-choice item builds its wrong answers out of siblings like these, because they are the options that look plausible to someone who has learned the category but not the distinction. If easement appurtenant appears as the correct answer, expect to see easement in gross and easement by necessity on the same screen.

Easement appurtenant does not stand on its own: it assumes you already know appurtenance. Questions that look like they are testing easement appurtenant are often really testing whether that idea is solid underneath it.

The exam most often tries to catch you by putting easement appurtenant next to easement in gross, license (land use) and encroachment. Each of those is a real concept sitting close enough to be tempting, and the question usually turns on the single feature that separates them rather than on the definition of either one. Read the contrast, not the term.

Words that mean easement appurtenant, but only sometimes

These are conditional synonyms. Each one is interchangeable with easement appurtenant in the context stated beside it and misleading everywhere else, which is precisely the kind of distinction an exam item is built on.

runs with the land: equivalent to easement appurtenant in when the point being made is that the right transfers on sale.

Related exam terms

Tested alongside

easement in gross

Often confused with

Know this first

Easement appurtenant belongs to the easement in real property family of exam concepts. When it is solid, take the free real estate exam prep or browse the full real estate exam vocabulary.