Easements and Access Rights
Definition
An easement is a recorded right for another party to use part of a property for a stated purpose without owning it: a road or driveway, a utility or pipeline corridor, drainage, a conservation restriction, or wind turbines and their access. Access rights are the reverse case, the farm's own right to reach a public road across a neighbor's land, which matters for landlocked parcels. Easements run with the land and usually survive a sale. Some pay the landowner (wind, solar, pipeline), some cost it farmable acres or flexibility, and some, such as conservation easements, permanently limit what the land can be used for.
Why it matters
Easements change both sides of the farm's economics. A wind or solar lease can pay more per acre than farm rent; a pipeline or transmission corridor can take acres and add disruption; a conservation easement can cap future value. Fractional offerings seldom list a farm's easements, yet they are in the title records. An investor should know what recorded rights exist, who receives any easement income (the investors or the manager), and whether the manager can grant new easements without investor approval.
Common misconceptions
- •An easement is not a sale. The landowner keeps title but gives up some use.
- •Easements do not end when the farm is sold. They usually run with the land.
- •Energy leases are not pure upside. They can restrict farming on the leased acres for decades.
- •Recorded access is not the same as physical access. A track across a neighbor's field may have no legal basis.
Technical details
Common easements on farms
Roads, driveways and access across neighboring land.
Utility, pipeline and transmission corridors.
Drainage and tile outlets, often through drainage districts.
Wind turbine and solar leases and options.
Conservation easements limiting development or use.
Questions for an offering
What easements and access rights are recorded, and what do they cost in tillable acres?
Who receives easement or energy lease income: the entity and its investors, or the manager?
Can the manager grant new easements without investor consent?
Does the farm have recorded legal access?
How investors apply the term
Investors usually apply this term by tying the definition back to the controlling documents and then asking which cash flows, rights, restrictions, or valuation assumptions it changes. A useful review looks at the term alongside fees, leverage, liquidity, reporting frequency, and manager discretion rather than treating it as a standalone concept.
The practical diligence test is simple: identify who benefits if the assumption is wrong, who has control when conditions change, and what evidence the investor receives after closing. Terms that cannot be reconciled to documents, cash movements, and monitoring data should be treated as marketing shorthand until proven otherwise.
Frequently asked questions
- Can easements add income to farmland?
- Yes. Farmland Partners seeks 'additional sources of income from our properties that are either incremental, such as wind easements and recreational leases, or are higher than farming rents, such as leases for solar power installations.' At the end of 2025, 10 of its farms (about 1,973 acres) had operating or under-construction renewable energy leases and 12 (about 4,211 acres) had options for future solar or wind development.
- How can easements hurt a farm's value?
- By taking tillable acres, splitting fields, allowing third parties onto the land, limiting drainage or development, or, for conservation easements, permanently restricting future use. Farmland Partners warns that third-party access rights, including those of mineral owners and power infrastructure, 'could materially and adversely impact the rental value of our properties.'
- What is a landlocked farm?
- A parcel without legal access to a public road. It may rely on a recorded easement across a neighbor, or on an informal arrangement that could end. Confirm recorded access before buying.
- Where are easements found?
- In the title commitment's Schedule B exceptions, recorded documents, the survey and, for drainage, county drainage district records.