An easement is a legal agreement. It can have a huge impact on the value of a site, but it needn’t be a major obstacle. For a developer looking to boost the viability of their project, and unlock their site’s potential, the ability to understand and manage an easement is essential.
Like wayleaves, easements grant permission for another party to use a section of land for a specific purpose. They can cover access roads, utilities, or even shared footpaths. Unlike wayleaves, however, they are registered against land titles. They expressly set out terms and restrictions relating to what a landowner can or cannot do on the land in question. They are binding on the land itself, rather than a person, and they do not automatically fall away if the land changes ownership.
Easements can be useful for land developers
An easement can:
- Improve accessibility to a development: by creating clear pathways for essential services like utilities and transport routes to pass through or alongside a site.
- Boost a site’s value: a carefully negotiated Deed of Easement can increase the marketability of a site by addressing potential legal and logistical challenges in advance, enabling the developer to explore new design options, and turning a straightforward piece of land into a multi-use asset.
- Reduce development costs: using / sharing existing rights of way for infrastructure can save time and money, instead of having to install new access routes or services from scratch.
BTS can help with easements by:
- Identifying compensation clauses in existing deeds
- Contacting network operators to commence negotiations
- Compiling reports setting out an assessment of loss figure, based on loss in valuable development land and visual impact due to the presence of utility apparatus
- Negotiating compensation to off-set the effect of this apparatus, or the cost of diverting it
- Advising and assisting with drawing up new heads of terms and a new deed of easement, that will be mutually beneficial and create certainty in the future.
Talk to BTS about releasing value from constraints affecting your site.
