Easement Appurtenant vs Easement in Gross: The Difference That Decides What Transfers

An easement appurtenant benefits a specific parcel of land and runs with it, so it passes automatically to whoever buys that parcel, while an easement in gross benefits a person or company rather than a parcel and does not necessarily transfer when the land is sold. A shared driveway that lets one lot reach the street is appurtenant, tied to the lot; a utility company's right to run a line across many properties is in gross, held by the utility. The distinction decides whether a buyer actually acquires the right it is paying for, which is why getting the type right is the first step in reading any easement.

Last updated July 2026.

Easements are easy to skim past on a title report because they read as short, standard grants. But the two words that follow, appurtenant or in gross, change what the right is worth and whether it survives a sale. For commercial property, where a parcel can depend on an access or utility easement to be usable at all, mistaking one type for the other is a diligence error with real consequences. Here is how they differ and what to check.

What is an easement?

An easement is a legal right to use another party's land for a defined purpose without owning it. In commercial real estate the common purposes are access, ingress and egress across a neighboring lot, utilities such as power, water, or fiber, shared parking, drainage and stormwater, and signage. The land that enjoys the right is the dominant estate, or benefited parcel; the land the easement runs across is the servient estate, or burdened parcel. An easement is an interest in land, which is what makes it more durable than mere permission and what raises the question at the heart of diligence: does this right pass to the next owner?

What is an easement appurtenant?

An easement appurtenant is attached to a parcel of land and benefits whoever owns that parcel. It always involves two properties, the benefited one and the burdened one, and it runs with the land, meaning it transfers automatically when either parcel is sold without needing to be re-granted. A retail pad that can only reach the road through a reciprocal access easement across the anchor's parking lot holds an appurtenant easement: the right belongs to the pad, not to any particular owner, so a buyer of the pad steps into it. Because it passes automatically, an appurtenant easement is part of what makes the benefited parcel usable and valuable, and diligence on that parcel has to account for it.

What is an easement in gross?

An easement in gross benefits a person or an entity rather than a parcel of land, so there is a burdened parcel but no benefited one. The classic example is a utility easement: the electric or water company holds the right to run and maintain its lines across many owners' properties, and that right belongs to the company, not to any neighboring lot. Personal easements in gross, held by an individual for a personal purpose, generally do not transfer and often end when the holder stops using them or dies. Commercial easements in gross, by contrast, are typically treated as assignable business assets, which is why the commercial versus personal character of an in-gross easement matters as much as the label.

Which easements transfer with the property?

Appurtenant easements transfer automatically with the benefited parcel, no separate assignment required. Easements in gross are more nuanced: commercial ones are generally transferable and assignable, while personal ones usually are not.

Why the distinction matters in a commercial deal

Because a buyer needs to know whether the right it is counting on actually comes with the purchase. If a parcel's road access depends on an appurtenant easement, confirming that easement runs with the land assures the buyer the access transfers. If a business depends on an assigned pipeline or fiber right, an easement in gross, the buyer has to confirm that right is commercial and was properly assigned rather than personal to the original grantee. Get it wrong and you can pay for access or infrastructure a property does not actually retain. This is why easements listed as title exceptions have to be abstracted, their type, parcels, scope, and transferability captured, not just noted, and the resulting terms feed the review that runs alongside purchase and sale agreement abstraction.

How an easement differs from a license

An easement is an interest in land that generally runs with the property and cannot be revoked at will, while a license is personal permission to use land that the owner can usually revoke and that does not bind a future buyer. A recorded parking easement is durable and passes with the parcels; a letter allowing a neighbor to park temporarily is a revocable license. Confusing the two overstates how secure a use really is, which is why a careful abstract records which one a document actually creates. For a commercial buyer, the difference between a permanent easement and a revocable license can be the difference between a usable site and a problem.

The bottom line

The appurtenant-versus-in-gross distinction is the first question to answer about any easement, because it decides what transfers. An appurtenant easement runs with the land and passes to a buyer automatically; an easement in gross belongs to a person or company and transfers only if it is commercial and properly assigned. Read every easement for its type, the parcels it connects, its scope, and its transferability before you rely on it or buy the property it burdens or benefits. To pull those terms out of a stack of recorded agreements and title exceptions into a structured, reviewable record, use easement abstraction.