An easement is a right that someone else holds over part of a piece of land: to drain water across it, to drive over it, to run a pipe or a line through it. It is attached to land, not to a person, so it does not end when the land is sold.
The law describes it in terms of two pieces of land. The one that gets the benefit, such as a lot behind that needs a way out to the street, is the dominant tenement. The one that carries the burden, such as the lot the driveway crosses, is the servient tenement. Some easements benefit no land at all, only a statutory authority such as a water or power utility; these are easements in gross.
An easement over a lot can stop you building over the strip it covers, and gives someone else the right to enter that strip for its purpose. A drainage easement along a back boundary can decide where a pool, a garage or an extension may go. A right of carriageway can mean a neighbour is entitled to use part of a driveway. What any one easement allows and prevents is in the document that created it, not in its name or its outline on a map.
Restrictions on the use of land and positive covenants are recorded and disclosed in the same way, and a restriction can limit what may be built as firmly as an easement can.
Registered easements are recorded on the title to the land. When land is subdivided, the easements to be created are commonly set out in a section 88B instrument, under the Conveyancing Act 1919, lodged with the plan. The plan shows where the easement runs; the instrument says what it is.
A vendor must attach to the contract for sale the title search and the plan, and every registered instrument shown on the title that creates an easement, a restriction on use or a positive covenant burdening or benefiting the land. The same Regulation requires the sewerage authority's diagram of the sewer lines on the land, where one is available. So the first place to look is the contract.
Before there is a contract, a title search and a copy of the plan and instruments can be bought from NSW Land Registry Services or one of its approved information brokers, for a fee.
For a New South Wales address the report checks the state's easement layer, part of the NSW Land Parcel and Property Theme, against the outline of the lot. Where the layer draws an easement over the lot, the report says how many, and the width recorded for each where the layer has one, and sends you to the instrument for its type, who benefits and what it prevents.
The state's easement layer holds about 23,500 easements against 3.35 million lots (counted September 2026), and many registered easements are not in it, so an empty result is printed as not established, never as "no easements". The report does not read the title. It does not name who holds an easement or what it permits, and it does not show restrictions on use or positive covenants. The title search and the instrument are the answer. The lot and plan that identify the land are explained in what "Lot 12 DP 123456" means; the hazard map and the council pages show what is mapped in each council area.
Check an addressReports from $9.90 including GST, paid once. The price belongs to the jurisdiction the address is in; the check is free and tells you the exact total for your address, and which registers cover it, before you pay anything.
An easement is a right that benefits one parcel of land (the dominant tenement) over another parcel (the servient tenement), for a stated purpose such as a right of carriageway or drainage. An easement in gross benefits a statutory authority rather than a parcel of land.
In New South Wales, registered easements are recorded on the title to the land, and easements created on subdivision are commonly set out in a section 88B instrument lodged with the plan. A vendor must attach to the contract for sale the registered instruments shown on the title that create an easement burdening or benefiting the land.
General information about New South Wales registers. Not legal, planning or valuation advice for any particular property.