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Boundary Line & Easement Dispute Lawyer

Boundary lines are only half the picture. Many of the neighbor and commercial property fights in the Puget Sound region are really about easements and rights-of-way — the legal right to use someone else’s land for access, utilities, or drainage.

When the use and value of your land are on the line, contact Dickson Frohlich Phillips Burgess to schedule a consultation. Seattle office: call (206) 621-1110.

Portland Estate Planning Lawyer

What Is an Easement? What Is a Right-of-Way?

When a shared driveway is blocked, a right-of-way is overused, or a neighbor denies that an easement exists at all, the usability and value of your property are directly on the line.

  • An easement is a nonpossessory right to use another person’s land for a specific, limited purpose — crossing it, running utility lines, or draining water, for example. The property that benefits is the dominant estate; the property that carries the burden is the servient estate. Critically, an easement grants a right to use the land, not to own it.
  • A right-of-way is the most common type of easement: the right to travel across another owner’s land to reach somewhere, usually for ingress and egress. Shared driveways, private access roads, and utility corridors are all rights-of-way. Disputes typically turn on who may use it, how heavily, and whether the servient owner can narrow or block it.

Dickson Frohlich Phillips Burgess handles easement and right-of-way disputes for Seattle and King County property owners — from single-family lots to commercial parcels where legal access is everything.

How Easements Are Created in Washington

Washington recognizes several ways an easement can come into existence, and how it was created controls how it is enforced, whether it transfers with the property, and how it can be ended.

  • Express easements are the most common. They are written into a signed, recorded document — a deed or a separate easement agreement — and must satisfy Washington’s conveyancing requirements under RCW 64.04.010 and .020. An oral “handshake” easement is not legally valid. Express easements can be created by grant or by reservation.
  • Easements implied from prior use arise when a single owner divides a property and an existing, apparent use — a driveway or a waterline, say — was reasonably necessary to the parcel that was split off. No writing is required; the easement is implied from the circumstances of the sale.
  • Easements by necessity arise when a parcel is landlocked with no reasonable legal access to a public road. They require common ownership before the split and a genuine necessity at the time of severance, and they last only as long as the necessity does.
  • Prescriptive easements are earned through long use rather than agreement — ten years of open, notorious, continuous use over a uniform route, adverse to (that is, without the permission of) the owner and with the owner’s knowledge.
  • Statutory way of necessity. Where a parcel is truly landlocked and negotiation fails, Washington lets a landowner petition the court to condemn a private way of necessity across a neighbor’s land under Chapter 8.24 RCW, paying the neighbor for the access taken. The route and width are limited to what is strictly necessary.

Does an Easement Transfer with the Property?

Usually, yes. Most easements are “appurtenant,” meaning they benefit a parcel of land and automatically pass to each new owner of that parcel. An easement “in gross” benefits a specific person or company — a utility, for instance — rather than a neighboring property.

Washington presumes an easement is appurtenant unless the documents clearly say otherwise, so in most neighbor disputes the rights and burdens run with the land to future owners. That is exactly why an unrecorded or poorly drafted easement so often surfaces as a dispute years later, frequently at sale.

Prescriptive Easement vs. Adverse Possession — What’s the Difference?

Both are based on long, unpermitted use, but they grant very different things. Adverse possession transfers ownership of the disputed ground and requires exclusive use for ten years (or seven with color of title and payment of the property taxes). A prescriptive easement grants only a right to use the land — not title — and does not require exclusive use.

A neighbor who has driven across your lot for a decade may win a prescriptive easement without ever owning an inch of it. In Washington, courts often presume that long neighborly use was permitted rather than adverse — especially on open or undeveloped land — so proving the “adverse” element is usually the hardest part of these claims, and the facts matter enormously.

Common Easement and Right-of-Way Disputes We Handle

Once an easement exists, conflict usually centers on its limits. We represent both dominant and servient owners in disputes over:

  • Existence — one owner denies an easement was ever created, or argues it was never validly recorded.
  • Scope and overburden — the easement holder pushes the use beyond what was granted: heavier traffic, commercial use of a residential right-of-way, or new utility lines that overburden the servient land.
  • Blocked or obstructed access — the servient owner installs a fence, gate, or landscaping that interferes with a lawful right-of-way.
  • Maintenance and repair — the parties disagree over who pays to maintain a shared driveway or private road.
  • Termination and abandonment — whether an easement has ended by agreement, merger, expiration of the necessity, or abandonment.

Encroachments sit squarely in this territory too. When a fence, wall, driveway, or building crosses a boundary or intrudes into an easement, the remedy may be removal, an action to quiet title, or a negotiated resolution — the same tools that resolve the boundary-line disputes described above.

How We Resolve Boundary and Easement Disputes

Most of these matters are won long before trial, in the records. Our approach generally moves through four stages:

  • Title and survey review. We examine the deeds, recorded easements, plats, and a current survey to establish what rights actually exist and where the true lines and easement routes lie. This is often the single most decisive step.
  • Demand and negotiation. Many disputes resolve through a documented agreement — a recorded easement, a boundary line adjustment, or a removal schedule — which is faster and less costly than litigation and preserves the neighbor relationship where that is still possible.
  • Quiet title or declaratory action. When the existence, scope, or location of an easement or boundary is genuinely contested, we file to have the court declare the parties’ rights and clear the cloud on title.
  • Injunction and enforcement. Where a neighbor is blocking a right-of-way or encroaching, we seek a court order to stop the interference or compel removal, and pursue damages where warranted.

Seattle-area property is expensive, and a few feet of disputed ground or a blocked access route can carry serious dollar value. Getting the strategy right — and knowing when to settle and when to litigate — protects both the asset and your leverage.

Utility, Drainage, and Shared-Driveway Easements

Not every easement is a driveway. In older Seattle neighborhoods and newer short plats alike, we regularly handle disputes over utility easements (sewer, water, power, and fiber lines that cross a neighbor’s land), drainage easements that carry stormwater between parcels, and access rights-of-way written into a plat decades ago. Shared-driveway rights-of-way are the most common of all — two homes splitting a single access lane with no clear agreement on repaving, debris removal, or how wide the usable surface has to stay.

These arrangements work until they don’t. A new owner blocks part of the lane, a provider widens a utility corridor beyond its recorded scope, or a downhill parcel starts shedding more runoff than the drainage easement ever contemplated. Because the recorded document — or the absence of one — controls the outcome, the first move is almost always to pull the recorded easements, the plat, and the title report and read them closely against what is actually happening on the ground.

Who Is Responsible for Maintaining a Shared Easement?

It depends on what the easement says. A well-drafted easement spells out who maintains the shared driveway, road, or utility line and how the cost is divided; many older easements say nothing at all. When the document is silent, the general rule in Washington is that those who use the easement share the reasonable and necessary cost of maintaining it in proportion to their use — but “reasonable” and “proportion” are exactly what neighbors end up fighting over.

A short maintenance agreement, recorded against both properties, heads off most of these disputes before they start, and we can draft or negotiate one as an alternative to litigation.

Buying or Selling Property with an Easement

Easements do not disappear at closing — an appurtenant easement runs with the land to the next owner, for better or worse. Before you buy, an easement recorded against a property can limit where you build, who may cross your land, and what the parcel is worth; before you sell, an unrecorded or ambiguous easement can cloud title and stall the deal.

We review title commitments and recorded instruments so easement rights and burdens are understood before money changes hands, not discovered afterward.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can my neighbor block a right-of-way easement across their property?

No. If you hold a valid right-of-way, the servient owner generally cannot fence, gate, or obstruct it in a way that defeats your lawful use. If they do, a court can order the obstruction removed and award damages. The key questions are whether the easement is valid and what scope of use it actually allows.

How long does it take to get a prescriptive easement in Washington?

Ten years of qualifying use. The use must be open and notorious, continuous, over a uniform route, and adverse — meaning without the owner’s permission — with the owner’s knowledge. Washington courts often presume neighborly use was permitted, especially on open land, so proving the “adverse” element is usually the hardest part.

What’s the difference between an easement and adverse possession?

An easement is a right to use land for a limited purpose; the underlying owner keeps title. Adverse possession transfers ownership of the disputed ground. Adverse possession also requires exclusive use, while a prescriptive easement does not. Which doctrine applies changes both the strategy and the outcome, so the distinction matters from the very start.

My property is landlocked. Can I force access across my neighbor’s land?

Possibly. If your parcel has no reasonable legal access to a public road, you may have an easement by necessity, or you may petition the court to condemn a private way of necessity under Chapter 8.24 RCW, compensating the neighbor. Washington law does not leave usable land without access, but the route and width are limited to what is reasonably necessary.

Why Choose Dickson Frohlich Phillips Burgess

Property disputes are not a sideline for our firm — they sit at the center of a real estate and business practice built for exactly these high-stakes questions. When a boundary, easement, or right-of-way is in play, here is what you get:

  • Real estate and business focus. Boundary and easement disputes turn on deeds, plats, surveys, and title records. That is the terrain our attorneys work in every day, not an occasional detour from an unrelated practice area.
  • Puget Sound knowledge, from filing to enforcement. We handle these matters in King County and across Western Washington from our Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia offices, and we understand how local courts approach property and quiet-title cases.
  • We negotiate and we litigate. Many disputes resolve faster and at lower cost through a well-drafted, recorded agreement — but when a neighbor won’t move, we are ready to take the case to court. We match the tool to the situation instead of forcing every dispute down the same path.

We tell you not just what you can do, but what you should do — given the cost, the timeline, and the value of the ground in question — so you can make a clear-eyed decision about your property.

Talk to a Seattle Boundary and Easement Dispute Lawyer

When a property line, easement, or right-of-way is in question, the value and use of your land are at stake. To discuss your situation, contact Dickson Frohlich Phillips Burgess to schedule a consultation. Seattle office: call (206) 621-1110.