What Is Ingress and Egress?
In real estate, ingress is the right to enter a property or location, while egress refers to the act of leaving or exiting that same property or location. Most commonly, ingress and egress rights refer to the right of a property owner or tenant to enter and leave the property using a specific path or driveway that does not belong to them.
Ingress and Egress Easements
To fully understand ingress and egress rights, you should also understand easements. An easement is the right to use the property of another person to a limited extent. Easements are important because you typically obtain ingress and egress rights through easements. Basically, you need an “access” easement if you ever need to cross over the property of another person to enter or exit your own property. A great example would be having an easement to cross someone’s driveway to reach your garage if you share that piece of property.
Alternatively, you might have an entire home on what is mostly the property of another person. So, you might need to use a private road to get to your driveway and/or reach the public road in the nearby area.
Ingress and Egress Easement Rights Explained
Typically, any property that doesn’t have ingress or egress rights of its own will require access easement rights over any adjacent private properties. These are very limited rights that only allow you to use other pieces of property in very limited ways.
For instance, a landlocked property may use one or more easements to access public roads by using the private roadways of other private properties nearby.
If you’re buying landlocked property, however, don’t always assume that a gravel road or a similar path is necessarily the easement point. It may be a different location due to the property needs of the surrounding private territory. Fortunately, house deeds and other legal documents should have all easements officially recorded for records.
Negotiating Ingress and Egress Easements
Any landlocked property owner has to negotiate ingress and egress easement agreements with adjoining property owners as soon as possible. This is often covered as standard procedure when a new landlocked property is being purchased.
The details of an easement can vary. For instance, some ingress or egress easements will only allow for foot traffic or may allow for single file car movement. It’s ultimately up to both parties included reaching an agreement.
When it comes to real estate, easements are usually officially recorded, similarly to titles and other publicly available records. This also means you can buy or sell easements alongside property deeds, which may come into play when negotiating the price for a given property.
Easement agreements should be recorded with county clerks as well. Both property owners must collect signatures. Furthermore, any future owners of a piece of landlocked property will need to be notified of easement rules and stipulations and will also need to abide by those stipulations if they don’t decide to ask for editing negotiations.
Can You Secure Ingress and Egress Without Easements?
Yes. As mentioned, ingress and egress rights can be included as part of property deeds. Owners for landlocked properties may particularly appreciate this point, since documenting such entry and exit rights on the deed is much easier. This also prevents surrounding property owners from trying to make changes to ingress or egress agreements without the landlocked property owner’s consent.
Alternatively, property owners can rely on land use agreements. Such contracts explicitly lay out various duties or responsibilities between two property owners. These must also be recorded with the county clerk’s office, just like an easement, for public records purposes. These also allow for significant flexibility, so ultimate rights are up to the negotiations between both sides.
For instance, land-use agreements can limit the weight of vehicles that can cross the surrounding property, or state how much the landlocked property owner needs to pay the neighboring property owner for road upkeep.
Ingress & Egress Easements and New Construction
Any easement rights that are granted after the fact are only between neighbors or property owners and the specific person requesting the easement rights at that time. Ingress and egress easements can’t be included for new occupants if you or another new property owner decides to expand.
Ingress & Egress Easements Public Road Access
Technically, public roads are available for everyone to access. However, owning property that is adjacent to a public road doesn’t necessarily mean that the property also includes rights for ingress or egress.
Here’s an example: a house both faces a public street and has a rear garage that opens up to an alley behind the property. Any driveways that enter onto the alley may provide single ingress or egress points for all houses that use the alley rather than a specific ingress and egress point for every piece of property.
In fact, many access points on the roads are somewhat limited by default. This means that, when buying or selling a property, you might need to negotiate ingress or egress rights if you also want to create a driveway or otherwise alter the property for easier entry and exit.
Ingress & Egress Easements Landlocked Parcels
Any “landlocked parcel” is a piece of land that doesn’t touch a public road. These locations are far from rare; for instance, houses in private developments or in the middle of golf courses are similar terrain may have to ingress or egress through different private roads in order to reach the nearest public road.
A more commercial example might be a fast-food restaurant surrounded by the parking lot of a large shopping center like a mall. Easements must be in place upon buying the property. Otherwise, customers or owners will not be able to get to the landlocked parcel of land without negotiating crossover rights with the other land’s owner(s).
Ingress and Egress Bottom Line
Ultimately, ingress and egress are vital rights for entry and exit to personal property and need to be considered in any real estate agreement. If you’re buying or overseeing the purchase of a landlocked parcel of land, make sure that both parties understand ingress and egress and are able to come to reasonable conclusions regarding these rights before going through the deal.