If your neighbor’s utilities are on your property, the first thing to figure out is whether a legal easement gives them the right to be there. If one does, you have to work within it, though you keep meaningful rights as the landowner. If no easement exists, the lines are an unauthorized encroachment and you can demand your neighbor remove them or pay you for a formal easement. Most of these situations are leftovers from how the properties were originally developed, but even an innocent encroachment creates real legal and financial consequences if you let it sit.
Figure Out Whether an Easement Exists
Everything else depends on this answer, so start here.
A utility easement is a recorded legal right that lets someone other than you use a defined strip of your land for a specific purpose. Easements for water, sewer, gas, or electrical lines are usually created when a neighborhood is first subdivided, recorded in public land records, and passed along automatically every time the property changes hands. You may have bought your home without realizing one existed because it was buried in your deed or title documents.
Pull your property deed and title insurance policy first. Those are the most likely places to find a recorded easement. A plot plan or survey from when you bought may also show easement boundaries. Look for language granting rights-of-way or utility access along specific portions of your lot.
If your documents don’t give a clear answer, a title search through the county recorder’s office will turn up any recorded easements or other encumbrances tied to your parcel. A real estate attorney or title company can handle this, and it’s usually the fastest way to get a definitive answer on paper.
For the physical picture, a licensed surveyor can map your boundaries and pinpoint exactly where the utility lines sit relative to your lot lines and any recorded easement corridor. Boundary surveys typically run between $800 and $5,500 depending on property size, terrain, and local market. The cost stings, but a survey gives you the hard evidence you need for any negotiation or legal action that follows.
There’s also a free option for locating buried lines. The national 811 “Call Before You Dig” service will send crews to mark the approximate location of underground utility infrastructure with paint or flags at no charge.1811 Before You Dig. 811 Before You Dig. Every Dig. Every Time. It won’t tell you who owns the lines or whether an easement exists, but you’ll know what’s running under your yard.
One other thing to check: even without a recorded easement, your neighbor may have developed a prescriptive easement if they’ve used a portion of your property openly, without your permission, and continuously for a period set by state law. Those periods range from a few years to over twenty.2Legal Information Institute. Easement by Prescription The use must have been visible enough for you to notice, adverse to your rights as the owner, and uninterrupted for the full statutory window.3Legal Information Institute. Prescriptive Easement A buried sewer line you never knew about is a wrinkle, since it’s hard to call something “open and notorious” when it was four feet underground. Courts handle that inconsistently.
If There Is a Valid Easement
A recorded easement on your property doesn’t strip you of your rights. You still own the land under and around it. You can use the easement area for anything that doesn’t interfere with its intended purpose, which generally means you can garden over a buried line or park on a driveway that crosses an easement strip, but you can’t build a permanent structure on it or block access for maintenance.
The important protection is that easements are interpreted narrowly. Courts don’t let easement holders expand beyond what the original agreement describes. If an easement grants your neighbor the right to run a sewer line along a specific ten-foot strip, they can’t decide to also run an electrical conduit through the same strip or widen the area they’re using. Where actual use exceeds what the easement allows, you have grounds to challenge the overreach.
Easements also come with maintenance obligations. The easement holder is generally responsible for maintaining the utility lines within the corridor and repairing any damage their maintenance causes to your property. If a repair crew tears up your landscaping to fix a water line, restoration is on them, not you.
If you believe an existing easement is too broad, is being misused, or was improperly recorded, a real estate attorney can evaluate whether you have grounds to modify or extinguish it.
If There Is No Easement
When your investigation confirms no recorded easement, no prescriptive claim, and no basis for necessity, your neighbor’s lines are an unauthorized encroachment. Legally, this is a form of continuing trespass, and you have the right to demand removal.
What you cannot do is grab a shovel and rip the lines out yourself. Beyond the physical danger of cutting into a gas or electrical line, self-help exposes you to liability for damage to the utility infrastructure and any resulting service disruptions. If your neighbor’s house loses water or power because you severed a line, you could end up on the wrong end of a damage claim even though the line was on your land without permission.
The financial responsibility for relocating unauthorized lines belongs to your neighbor. They caused the encroachment or inherited it from a previous owner, so they bear the cost of rerouting onto their own property, including labor, materials, and any permits the local utility or municipality requires.
Steps to Resolve It
Start With a Conversation
Approach your neighbor with the evidence from your survey or title search and explain the situation calmly. Most utility encroachments aren’t deliberate. The lines were probably installed by a previous owner, a contractor who didn’t check the boundary, or a developer who cut corners. Your neighbor may have no idea their sewer line dips across the property line. A direct conversation often produces a cooperative resolution faster than anything else.
Send a Written Demand
If talking doesn’t produce results, put your request in writing. Send a demand letter by certified mail with return receipt requested so you have documented proof your neighbor received it. The letter should describe the encroachment, reference your survey or title evidence, and set a reasonable deadline for removal or a response. Keep the tone factual rather than threatening. This letter becomes important evidence if the dispute escalates.
Try Mediation
Before filing a lawsuit, mediation is worth serious consideration. A neutral mediator helps both sides negotiate a resolution without the cost and hostility of litigation. Many courts require or strongly encourage mediation in property disputes before scheduling a trial. Mediation sessions typically cost a fraction of what litigation runs, and the resolution rate is high because most neighbors prefer a practical compromise over a court fight with someone they’ll see every day.
File a Lawsuit
When negotiation and mediation fail, a real estate attorney can file a trespass claim or a quiet title action. A trespass claim seeks a court order compelling your neighbor to remove the lines and may include damages for the unauthorized use of your property. A quiet title action resolves competing claims to your land by asking the court to declare that no easement exists. Real estate attorneys handling property disputes typically charge between $150 and $400 per hour, and litigation costs climb quickly if the case goes to trial.
Consider a Paid Easement Instead of Removal
Demanding removal isn’t always the smartest play. Rerouting a sewer or water line can cost thousands of dollars and tear up both properties, and your neighbor may fight you hard. In many situations the better move is to negotiate a formal easement agreement where your neighbor compensates you for the right to keep their lines in place.
A paid easement should spell out the exact location and dimensions of the easement corridor, what types of utilities are allowed, who is responsible for maintenance and repairs, and what happens if the lines need replacement. Have the agreement drafted by an attorney and recorded with your county recorder’s office so it shows up on future title searches. Compensation is typically based on the fair market value of the land within the easement corridor, though the final number is whatever you and your neighbor agree to.
Keep one thing in mind: a recorded easement runs with the land, meaning it binds future owners of both properties. If you sell your house, the new buyer inherits the easement. If your neighbor sells theirs, the new neighbor inherits the right to use it. Make sure the terms are ones you’d be comfortable with permanently, because effectively that’s what they are.
Don’t Wait
Delay works against you in two ways. First, if your neighbor’s lines sit in place long enough, they may qualify for a prescriptive easement, converting unauthorized use into a permanent legal right. The clock varies by state, but the window can be as short as a few years.2Legal Information Institute. Easement by Prescription Every year you wait strengthens their claim.
Second, statutes of limitations can bar your trespass claims. Courts distinguish between permanent and continuing trespasses. A continuing trespass is one that can be fixed at reasonable cost, and each day it continues restarts the clock on your right to sue. A permanent trespass is one that would be prohibitively expensive to remedy, and the statute of limitations begins running when the encroachment first occurs. If a court classifies the encroachment as permanent and the statutory period has passed, you may lose the ability to demand removal at all. Act once you know about the problem.
What It Means for a Future Sale
Unresolved encroachments can affect what your property is worth and complicate a future sale. Recorded easements show up on title searches, and unrecorded encroachments get flagged during buyer inspections and surveys. Either way, a buyer will notice, and many will negotiate the price down or walk away.
Most jurisdictions require you to disclose known easements and encroachments as part of the seller’s property disclosures. Failing to disclose can expose you to legal action from the buyer after closing. Resolving the issue before you list, whether through removal, a formal easement agreement, or a quiet title action, eliminates the disclosure headache and protects your sale price.