DOCUMENT ALLOWING ACCESS TO PLAINTIFF’S LAND OVER DEFENDANT’S LAND DID NOT INCLUDE ANY WORDS OF PERMANENCY, THE DOCUMENT CREATED A REVOCABLE LICENSE NOT AN EASEMENT (FOURTH DEPT).
The Fourth Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined the filed document which described a right to access plaintiff’s land over defendant’s land did not include any language indicating access was to be granted permanently. Therefore the document created a license which defendant had revoked:
The law is well settled that ” [a]n easement appurtenant is created when such easement is (1) conveyed in writing, (2) subscribed by the person creating the easement and (3) burdens the servient estate for the benefit of the dominant estate’ “… . Although no specific words are required to express the permanency of an easement … , to “create an easement by express grant there must be a writing containing plain and direct language evincing the grantor’s intent to create a right in the nature of an easement rather than a revocable license . . . The writing must establish unequivocally the grantor’s intent to give for all time to come a use of the servient estate to the dominant estate. The policy of the law favoring unrestricted use of realty requires that where there is any ambiguity as to the permanence of the restriction to be imposed on the servient estate, the right of use should be deemed a license, revocable at will by the grantor, rather than an easement”… .
Here, the document signed by the parties’ predecessors in interest contains no words of permanency, nor any indication that it is meant to bind the grantor’s successors in interest. Thus, we conclude that plaintiff failed to establish that the parties’ predecessors intended to create an easement … . New York Land Dev. Corp. v Bennett, 2018 NY Slip Op 02926, Fourth Dept 4-27-18
REAL PROPERTY (EASEMENTS AND LICENSES, DOCUMENT ALLOWING ACCESS TO PLAINTIFF’S LAND OVER DEFENDANT’S LAND DID NOT INCLUDE ANY WORDS OF PERMANENCY, THE DOCUMENT CREATED A REVOCABLE LICENSE NOT AN EASEMENT (FOURTH DEPT))/EASEMENTS ( DOCUMENT ALLOWING ACCESS TO PLAINTIFF’S LAND OVER DEFENDANT’S LAND DID NOT INCLUDE ANY WORDS OF PERMANENCY, THE DOCUMENT CREATED A REVOCABLE LICENSE NOT AN EASEMENT (FOURTH DEPT))/LICENSES (REAL PROPERTY, DOCUMENT ALLOWING ACCESS TO PLAINTIFF’S LAND OVER DEFENDANT’S LAND DID NOT INCLUDE ANY WORDS OF PERMANENCY, THE DOCUMENT CREATED A REVOCABLE LICENSE NOT AN EASEMENT (FOURTH DEPT))