REAL PROPERTY-EASEMENTS-EXTINCTION OF EASEMENTS CREATED BY IMPLICATION OR PRESCRIPTION ON SALE OF SERVIENT LAND TO BONA FIDE PURCHASER

Authors

Howard W. Haftel, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

Plaintiffs and defendants owned adjoining farms. About thirty years ago their predecessors in title had constructed an underground tile drain from plaintiffs' farm to and across defendants' farm. In 1934 this drain was obstructed. In 1941 the servient farm was sold to defendants, who gave value and had no knowledge of the existence of the drain. Plaintiffs sought an injunction to compel removal of the obstruction. The lower court found that plaintiffs had acquired a prescriptive right to use the drain before it was obstructed, but refused to grant the injunction on the ground that defendants as bona fide purchasers had taken the servient land free of the easement. On appeal, held, reversed. An easement created by prescription or implication is not extinguished by sale of the servient land, even to a bona-fide purchaser. McKeon v. Brammer, (Iowa 1947) 29 N.W. (2d) 518.

Recommended Citation

Howard W. Haftel, REAL PROPERTY-EASEMENTS-EXTINCTION OF EASEMENTS CREATED BY IMPLICATION OR PRESCRIPTION ON SALE OF SERVIENT LAND TO BONA FIDE PURCHASER, 46 Mich. L. Rev. 852 (1948).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol46/iss6/23