This blog post is an excerpt from the Owning Your Piece of Texas: Key Laws Texas Landowners Need to Know handbook, which is available for free download by clicking here.  If you are interested in purchasing a hard copy, please contact me at tdowell@tamu.edu. An easement is a means by which a landowner grants another person the right to use the landowner’s property for a specific purpose.  The land on which the easement is granted is referred to as the “servient estate”, and the land the easement benefits… Read More →

*Update:  The Texas Supreme Court denied the petition for review on August 2, 2019.  The Amarillo Court of Appeals recently issued an opinion in Gordon v. Demmon, a case involving access to landlocked property.  This is an issue more common in Texas than one might realize, so I always find court opinions instructive and a good reminder to landowners about some key considerations when dealing with access to property. Background In 1971, the Gordons purchased a 6 acre tract of land in Bell County, which was severed from a… Read More →

A recent decision out of the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals addresses the requirements to prove an easement by estoppel and offers some good reminders for Texas landowners when dealing with access easements. Background This case involves a dispute over a road between two pieces of property, one owned by the Cores family and another by LaBorde Properties.  The road had been in place even before the Cores and LaBordes owned the land and was created to allow landlocked landowners with property south of the Cores’ land to… Read More →

Question:  I own property that is landlocked–I’ve got no way to access my land from a public road without crossing over private property owned by someone else.  What can I do to access my property? Answer:  Despite many people thinking that landowners always have an automatic right to access their landlocked property, under Texas law, that is not always the case.  A landlocked landowner has a number of options to consider. Obtain an express easement from a neighbor.  Likely the easiest way to obtain access to landlocked property… Read More →

*UPDATE:  The Texas Supreme Court granted the Petition for Review on August 30, 2019 and will consider this case.* A new case from the Texarkana Court of Appeals could prove extremely useful for landowners dealing with old, blanket easement agreements on their property.  In Southwestern Electric Power Company v. Lynch, the court held that the general easement at issue, which was silent as to width, limited the allowable width of the easement to 30 feet, which was the width historically used by the transmission line company. [Read full opinion… Read More →

Question:  I own property in Texas.  I previously granted a roadway easement to my neighbor so he can access his property to the west.  Who is required to maintain the easement, including both keeping up the roadway and mowing the grass and trimming the trees along the road? Answer: The first step in answering this question is to look at the terms of the easement itself if it is a written easement.  If there are any contractual terms in the easement agreement describing who is responsible for maintenance,… Read More →