Easements and leases as limitations on ownership

Ownership can be shared by function

An owner can hold title while someone else has a limited use right or a right to possess the property. Easements and leases are nonfinancial encumbrances: they limit ownership without necessarily creating a debt.

Easement: use without possession

An easement is a nonpossessory right to use another person's land for a specified purpose, such as access or utility lines. The servient estate bears the burden. With an easement appurtenant, the dominant estate receives the benefit; the benefit ordinarily transfers with that land. An easement in gross benefits a person or entity rather than a dominant parcel. A utility easement is a common example.

The owner retains uses consistent with the easement but cannot obstruct its authorized use. An access easement does not convey ownership of the driveway or permission to use the entire parcel. A license, by comparison, is generally revocable permission rather than an easement interest.

Easements can arise through express grant or reservation, implication, necessity, or prescription when the required legal elements exist. Long use with permission does not establish the adverse use required for prescription. A release or merger of the complete dominant and servient interests in one owner can terminate an easement. Mere nonuse alone generally does not establish abandonment. The instrument and applicable law determine the precise scope and termination rules.

Lease: possession for a term

A lease gives a tenant a leasehold right of possession while the landlord retains ownership and a reversionary interest. A fixed-term tenancy has a definite ending date; it need not last a full year. A periodic tenancy renews by successive rental periods until properly terminated. Expiration of a lease ends the tenant's contractual term, not the landlord's title.

Florida connections

Under Florida Statutes section 712.03(5), marketable record title does not extinguish recorded or unrecorded easements that remain in use; use of part protects the right to the entire use. Section 712.03(3) also protects a person's rights while that person remains in possession. Do not assume an older easement or an occupying tenant disappears because title is marketable.

Florida Statutes section 83.02, in the nonresidential part of Chapter 83, classifies specified written tenancies with unlimited terms and recurring rent periods as tenancies at will. Monthly rent makes such a tenancy month to month. Do not confuse an unlimited recurring tenancy with a fixed one-year lease whose rent is paid monthly.