Easements in Victoria: what that line on your title actually means

You are reading through a title search and there it is: "easement" followed by a string of numbers and a reference to a plan. Nobody explains it at the open home, but it is one of the most common things buyers find in a Section 32, and it is worth understanding properly.

What is an easement?

An easement is a registered legal right for someone who is not the owner to use part of the land for a specific purpose. The land carries the right, not the person, which means every future owner takes the property with the easement in place. Selling the property does not remove it, and neither does a new fence.

Two roles are involved. The land that benefits from the right is called the dominant tenement, and the land that carries the burden is the servient tenement. When you buy a property with an easement over it, you are buying the servient side: someone else holds a defined right over a defined part of your land.

The common types in Victoria

Most residential easements fall into a handful of categories:

• Drainage and sewerage easements. The most common by far. A water authority holds the right to run pipes under a strip of the land, usually along a rear or side boundary, and to access that strip for maintenance. Melbourne's older suburbs are laced with them.
• Carriageway easements. A right of way allowing someone, often a neighbour, to pass across part of the land to reach their own property. Battle-axe blocks and shared driveways frequently rely on these.
• Party wall easements. Rights of support between adjoining buildings, common in terrace housing.
• Utility easements. Electricity, gas, or telecommunications infrastructure crossing private land.

Where to find easements in your documents

Easements show up in three places, and it is worth checking all of them:

1. The register search in the Section 32 lists registered easements as encumbrances on the title.
2. The plan of subdivision shows where each easement physically sits, marked as a hatched or labelled strip with its width and purpose.
3. The Section 32 itself describes easements and rights of way, including some that may exist without registration, such as implied easements under subdivision legislation.

Reading the plan matters as much as reading the register. An easement described in one line of text becomes much more concrete when you see it running directly under the spot where a previous owner built the garden shed.

Why do easements matter when buying?

An easement is not a defect, and the majority of suburban properties carry at least one without any drama. The practical significance comes down to location and purpose:

• Building over an easement is restricted. Structures over a drainage easement generally require consent from the relevant authority, and consent comes with conditions. An extension, garage, or pool that would sit on the easement is a conversation with the council and the authority before it is anything else.
• Access rights are real. An authority with a maintenance right can dig up the strip to reach its assets. Fences and gardens on an easement live there at the owner's risk.
• A carriageway easement is a shared arrangement. If a neighbour has a right of way across the driveway, that arrangement continues after settlement, and its terms are worth reading closely.

Whether any of this matters for your plans is exactly the kind of question to put to your conveyancer, with the plan of subdivision open on the table. They can confirm what the easement permits, who holds it, and how it interacts with anything you intend to build.

Building over or near an easement, in practice

The easement usually only becomes a live issue when you want to build:

• The strip protects an asset (a pipe, drain, or cable) or an access right, and the authority's interest is keeping it reachable and intact.
• A build-over-easement application is the formal route to putting a structure over the strip. The authority assesses the design and can attach conditions, such as a bridging slab or a setback.
• Some projects are approved with conditions, some are redesigned to clear the strip, and some cannot be built over it at all. That is the authority's assessment, not the seller's or the agent's.

If a garage, extension, or pool is in the plan, the easement's location is a design input from day one, worked through with your conveyancer and building designer against the plan of subdivision, alongside the building permit history.

How easements come to exist

• Created on subdivision. The plan of subdivision commonly creates drainage, sewerage, and access easements when lots are laid out. These are the everyday suburban ones.
• Granted expressly. A registered agreement between owners, such as a neighbour's right of way.
• Implied or statutory. Some rights exist without a separate registered dealing, which is why the Section 32 text matters alongside the register.

The origin is your conveyancer's territory, but it explains why the same word can describe anything from a council drain to a shared driveway.

Can an easement be removed?

Removing or varying a registered easement is a formal legal process, and in most cases the realistic answer for a buyer is to treat the easement as permanent. Some easements are occasionally varied by agreement between the parties or through planning processes, but that is specialist legal territory. The sensible starting position when reading a Section 32 is that whatever is registered will still be registered in twenty years.

Summary

An easement is a registered right for someone else to use part of the land, most commonly a water authority with pipes along a boundary or a neighbour with a right of way. It stays with the land through every sale. Find it in the register search, then locate it on the plan of subdivision so you know exactly where it sits, and raise anything that intersects with your building plans with your conveyancer before you sign. For the wider picture of what else lives in the statement, our complete Section 32 guide covers every section in order.

Sources

• Land Use Victoria: Property and land titles information: the Victorian land registry where easements are recorded on the Certificate of Title and shown on the plan of subdivision.
• Sale of Land Act 1962 (Vic), section 32: the Vendor's Statement requirement to disclose easements and other title encumbrances.

Sources verified 25 July 2026.