When does an easement expire in NC?
My lawyer has said to me, any easement granted on my property expires after 20 years of it not being used by the person it was given to. He’s been busy, I am trying to find the NC statute number that says this.
Reason is, an ajoining land owner has all of a sudden started bring a dozer and tearing up the right of way that goes to a spring. Over 40 years ago, an easement was granted to a spring on my property. However, over 20 years ago, this person had drilled a well on thier own property and stopped using this natural spring for water. Now we are having a dispute with her son, who is taking his dozer up there just to spite us. If this is true, and an abandonment of easement statute does apply after 20 years of it’s usage, we can legally stop this activity from taking place. So i’m hoping somebody here can give me a statute number, again, my lawyer says this law exists somewhere, but i’m unable to locate it.
July 20th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
You should be able to find the statutes on line. Once do a search (if you have a searchable database) or seafch the index under "statutes of limitation," & "easements."