Easements and Surveys: What Indiana Home Buyers Should Check Before Closing

You fall for a backyard. You picture the fence, the shed, maybe a small garage in the back corner. Then you find out a drainage easement runs right through the spot you had in mind.

Easements and property lines are not exciting, and they quietly decide what you can do with your land. The good news is that most of this can be checked before you close.

A quick note first. I am a REALTOR, not an attorney or a land surveyor. When a boundary or easement question turns legal, those are the right people to ask.

What an easement is

An easement is a right someone else has to use part of your property for a specific purpose. You still own the land. You just cannot interfere with that use.

Easements usually run with the land, meaning they stay attached to the property when it sells. The last owner agreed to them or inherited them, and now you will too.

Here are the common kinds a Greater Lafayette buyer runs into.

• Utility easements for electric, gas, water, sewer, cable, and fiber lines. Crews can access them to install and repair.
• Drainage easements that keep a path open for stormwater to move through a neighborhood.
• Access easements that let someone cross your land, such as a shared driveway or a rear lot with no road frontage.
• Regulated drain easements along county drains and ditches, which are common in rural parts of the county.

Easements in subdivisions

In most newer subdivisions around Lafayette and West Lafayette, the recorded plat shows easements along rear and sometimes side lot lines. That is where utilities run and where water is designed to flow between yards.

Those strips look like ordinary yard. That is exactly why people put fences, sheds, gardens, and play sets on them.

Drainage easements matter most. A swale between two backyards might look like a slight dip in the grass, and it is doing an important job during a heavy rain. Blocking it can send water toward your house or your neighbor's.

Tippecanoe County takes this seriously. The county's stormwater management ordinance says no fences or landscaping that impede the flow of stormwater may be placed in overflow path drainage easements, and it restricts permanent structures, including fences, near county regulated drains outside platted subdivisions. Rules get updated, so confirm the current version with the County Surveyor's office for your parcel.

Covenants and HOA rules often add their own limits on fence style, height, and placement. What to know about HOAs in Greater Lafayette covers which documents to ask for.

Shared driveways and access easements

Outside the subdivisions, especially on country properties around the county, I regularly see shared lanes and driveways that cross one parcel to reach another.

When that access is recorded in writing, you know who can use it and, ideally, who pays to maintain it. When it is not recorded, you may be relying on a handshake between two previous owners who are no longer around.

If you are buying a home reached by a shared drive, ask for the recorded easement and any maintenance agreement. Snow removal, gravel, and potholes sound small until two neighbors disagree about them. If nothing is recorded, talk with an attorney about getting it in writing before you close.

The title commitment tells you what is recorded

Before closing, the title company issues a title commitment. It lists exceptions, which are recorded items the title policy will not cover. Easements show up there.

Most buyers skim right past that list. Please do not. The exceptions often read like a string of recording numbers, and each one points to a real document you can ask for.

Ask the title company for copies of the easements and the recorded plat. Then look at where they sit compared to where you want to put things.

Watch for one exception in particular. Many commitments include a general exception for matters a survey would disclose. That means if a fence crosses the line or a shed sits in an easement, the policy may not cover it unless a survey was done. Title insurance in Indiana explained covers the commitment and the two policies in more depth.

What a survey shows that nothing else does

A title search tells you what is recorded. A survey tells you what is actually on the ground.

A licensed surveyor locates the boundary lines, marks corners, and shows where buildings, fences, driveways, and easements sit compared to those lines. That is how you find the problems the paperwork cannot.

• A neighbor's fence that sits a few feet onto the lot.
• Your own shed or driveway that crosses onto the neighbor's side.
• A garage built inside a setback or easement.
• A lot that is a different shape or size than the listing suggested.

The online county parcel maps are useful for a rough picture, and I use them all the time. They are not surveys, and the lines on them can be off. Do not plan a fence off a GIS map.

When I recommend ordering a survey

Not every purchase needs one. In a platted subdivision with clear corner pins and nothing close to the lines, many buyers skip it. Here is when I strongly suggest one.

• You plan to add a fence, shed, pool, garage, or addition.
• An existing fence, driveway, or outbuilding sits near a property line.
• The lot is irregular, on a curve, or along a creek or ditch.
• You are buying acreage or rural land, where old legal descriptions can be vague.
• The title commitment lists survey-related exceptions you want removed.
• Something about the lot looks different from the listing or the plat.

If you are buying land to build, a survey is close to essential. Buying land to build in Tippecanoe County covers the rest of that due diligence.

Timing matters. Surveyors get busy, especially in spring and summer. Order early in your contract period so you still have time to act if something turns up. Contingencies in an Indiana purchase agreement explains the windows you are working inside.

Fences and sheds over the line

This is the most common real-world issue I see, and it usually has a calm solution.

Older fences were often put up by eye. Sheds get placed where they fit. Neighbors are friendly and nobody measures. Years later, a survey shows the fence is a couple of feet off.

If you find it before closing, you have options. You can ask the seller to move or remove the structure, negotiate a credit, get a written agreement with the neighbor, or decide it does not matter to you. If the conflict is significant, or if someone has used land openly for a long time, talk with a real estate attorney before you close.

If you find it after closing, you have far less room to negotiate and fewer options. That is the whole case for checking first.

How this fits with zoning

Easements are one layer. Zoning and setbacks are another. A spot can be clear of easements and still too close to a lot line under local zoning rules. Zoning and property restrictions in Tippecanoe County covers the public rules side, including who to call.

When a buyer tells me what they plan to do with a property, I help them check all three layers before we write: recorded easements, covenants, and zoning. That is part of Buy & Move Smart, because the best time to learn the backyard plan will not work is before you pay for the backyard.

The short version

Easements are rights others have to use part of your land, and they stay with the property. Read the title commitment exceptions and ask for the documents. Look at the recorded plat. Order a survey when anything sits near a line or you plan to build. And sort out boundary conflicts before closing.

You can see a lot line on a parcel map from anywhere. Knowing which subdivisions have drainage swales running behind every yard is local knowledge. If you have a property in mind and a plan for it, grab a time on my calendar and we will look at it together.

A real person reads every message. No pressure either way. Let's get you home.