Servitudes

Town’s extension of an easement to the general public overburdens and exceeds the scope of the easement

/ Easements, Real Estate Transactions, Servitudes

The Massachusetts Appeals Court has held that opening an easement to the general public may overburden it when the easement had not previously been used in that manner, giving the owner of the servient estate the chance to prove that the increased use interfered with his retained property rights in the underlying land and exceeded the scope of the rights included in the easement. Goff v. Town of Randolph, 56 N.E.3d 893 (Table), 2016 WL 4258381 (Mass. App. Ct. 2016).

An easement cannot be used to reach land to which it is not appurtenant

/ Easements, Real Estate Transactions, Servitudes

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has held that an easement cannot be extended even for a short way to access land to which it is not appurtenant. When an easement is created to enable access to a particular parcel of land, it can be used only for that purpose and not to access other parcels of land even if continguous. Taylor v. Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank Comm’n, 60 N.E>3d 319 (Mass. 2016).

Servitudes to be interpreted to promote the intent of the parties and not strictly construed

/ Real Estate Transactions, Servitudes

The Utah Supreme Court joined others in adopting the modern view that servitudes (restrictive covenants) should be interpreted to effectuate the intent of the parties, rather than interpreting them strictly so as to maximize the rights of the owner of the burdened property, as the traditional rule held. Fort Pierce Ind. Park Phases II, III & IV Owners Ass’n v. Shakespeare, (Utah 2016).

Legal consequences of the distinction between affirmative easements and restrictive covenants

/ Condominiums and Homeowners Associations, Easements, Real Estate Transactions, Servitudes, Trespass

Massachusetts statutes regulate the enforceability of “covenants” by limiting the circumstances in which they can be enforced, defining when they can be enforced by damages only and not injunctive relief, and subjecting enforcement to a 6 year statute of limitations. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 184 §23A, §30.  In a recent application of those statutes, the Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled in BP Watertown Retail, LLC v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., 2016 WL 513955 (Mass. App. Ct. 2016), that these limitations do not apply to affirmative easements; rather they apply only to restrictive covenants. So when an owner of a store in a shopping center engaged in construction in a shared parking area, eliminating several parking spaces, its actions did not merely violate the restrictions on construction in the parking area but interfered with access to the parking area by other easement beneficiaries who had a right to use the parking lot without …

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Taking of property when an easement is expanded beyond its original scope

/ Easements, Servitudes, Takings

In Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States, 134 S.Ct. 1257 (2014), landowners objected when an easement that had been granted for railroad purposes was converted to a trail for public hiking. An easement is a permanent right to use land owned by another for a specific purpose. State law determines how to interpret the scope of the purpose. Some states interpret a general right of way as not only giving the easement owner the right to pass over the land by walking or driving but a right to install utility lines; other states interpret the scope of the easement narrowly and would view utility lines as exceeding the scope of the easement. In addition, state law determines when an easement ends because of abandonment. Most states find that mere nonuse does not constitute abandonment. However, once state law determines that a use exceeds the scope of the easement or that …

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Texas beachfront property rights after hurricanes

/ Easements, Servitudes, Takings, Trespass, Water Rights

In general, when property borders change because of gradual accretion or erosion along rivers or oceans, then owners gain or lose land because of those changes.  If land is gradually added to an owner’s land by gradual build-up of sand or silt, then the owner’s property increases to that extent; the reverse is also true. But if the border changes suddenly (“avulsion”) then the borders do not change. The courts have generally applied these principles to beachfront property to determine the border between the private property rights of beachfront owners and the land owned by the public accessible by anyone. Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, 560 U.S. 702 (2010), challenged a common law rule giving the public access to a new sand area on the beach created by government landfill. While refusing to decide whether a judicial common law ruling could be a taking, the Court …

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Massachusetts courts hostile to easement by necessity doctrine

/ Easements, Real Estate Transactions, Servitudes, Statute of Frauds

In Kitras v. Town of Aquinnah, 49 N.E.3d 198 (Mass. 2016), the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (SJC) refused to recognize easements by necessity for landlocked parcels. Massachusetts accepts the usual presumption that one who creates a landlocked parcel intends to give the owner of the landlocked parcel an easement over remaining land of the grantor to reach a public road. In most states the doctrine is based both on the implied intent of the grantor and public policy considerations that support access to land both to protect the landlocked owner’s right to access his or her land and general welfare considerations of making the land alienable and usable. However, the emerging majority rule seems to be that the touchstone is the intent of the parties and if the parties actually intend to create a landlocked parcel, they will be allowed to do so, and their arrangement will …

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Anticompetitive covenant in shopping center lease broadly construed

/ Leaseholds, Real Estate Transactions, Restraints on Alienation, Servitudes

Following Florida law, the Eleventh Circuit construed the terms of restrictive covenants in shopping center leases broadly. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. v. Dolgencorp, LLC, 746 F.3d 1008 (11th Cir. 2014). The covenants were part of the leases granted to Winn-Dixie supermarkets and protected it from competition by limiting the ability of other stores to sell “staple or fancy groceries” to a discrete “sales area.” Traditionally, ambiguities in covenants were construed to limit the covenant, freeing the servient estate owner to a broader use of its property and Florida precedents have adopted that  position. Moore v. Stevens, 106 So. 901, 903 (Fla. 1925) (ambiguous “covenants are strictly construed in favor of the free and unrestricted use of real property”). However, applying a recent holding from a Florida state court, see Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. v. 99 Cent Stuff-Trail Plaza, LLC, 811 So.2d 719 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2002),  the Eleventh Circuit held that the term “groceries” applied not …

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