Does our neighbor have an easement across our property?
real estate attorney New Jersey Aug 18, 2026
Location: New Jersey Genuinely curious because I have been arguing with my dad over this for the past two or so hours. I'm a year away from finishing law school and CALI'd Property my first year so tend to believe I'm right but he is absolutely not convinced. (He is not a lawyer). I digress: Our neighbor (I'll call him Bob) has lived across the street from our house for well over 30 or so years. We just moved into the neighborhood three years ago. Part of our property, owned legally by us, consists of a strip of land across the side of our backyard (outside of our fenced-in yard area) able to be used as a path and wide enough for vehicles to pass through. Bob, since we moved in, has regularly driven his pickup truck through this path to move bundles of wood off of his property. This has occurred a couple of times per month. We had a conversation with him recently; apparently he has been doing this "forever" (well before we ever moved in). The previous owner of our house, call him Jim, never said anything about it. My dad apparently doesn't like Bob's use of the property and wants to put up some sort of barriers to prevent him from entering; Bob in the recent conversation referred to the path as "my easement" and believes that he has the right to use the land because he has been using it for so long. Am I correct in arguing that Bob is in fact entitled to a prescriptive easement? My dad is claiming that there cannot be one since (a) there is no easement on the survey (I tried explaining to him that prescriptive easements are unrecorded) and (b) it's not fair that the new owners have to live with the consequences of the previous owners allowing an easement to come into existence (I tried to explain to him that easements run with the land; it doesn't matter who the owner is). If I'm correct and not just forgetting since it's been a while since I was in Property, all of the requirements of a prescriptive easement are fulfilled. The use wasn't permissive but Jim never did anything to stop it. The use is reasonably such that a prudent owner would be put on notice of it taking place. A couple of times per month seems like a reasonable fit for a use in accordance with the nature of the property. My dad and I agreed to assume that the 20 year statutory period is fulfilled since Bob has been living here over 30yrs. None of these names are real. Help me win this argument?
