Easement Agreement

DELAWARE DEED OF EASEMENT AND AGREEMENT

Recording Cover Information

Do not include Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, or other unnecessary personal identifiers in the public instrument. Confirm the current county cover sheet, margin, page-size, font, affidavit, tax, fee, and submission requirements before recording.

1. Date, Parties, and Ownership

This Deed of Easement and Agreement (the “Instrument”) is made on [DATE] by:

Grantor: [FULL LEGAL NAME, ENTITY TYPE, STATE, ADDRESS], record owner of the real property described in Exhibit A (the “Servient Property”); and

Grantee: [FULL LEGAL NAME, ENTITY TYPE, STATE, ADDRESS], [OWNER OF / OTHER RELATIONSHIP TO] the real property described in Exhibit B (the “Dominant Property”), if any.

2. Easement Classification and Geometry

Counsel must complete every selection; inconsistent selections must be resolved before signing.

The legal description must permit the Easement Area to be located on the ground. A sketch without a controlling description should not be used unless the surveyor, title professional, recorder, and counsel approve it.

3. Grant

For the stated consideration, Grantor creates and grants to Grantee the easement classified in Section 2, over the Easement Area described in Exhibit C, solely for the purposes and on the terms stated in this Instrument.

The parties intentionally do not use the statutory phrase “grant and convey” unless counsel selects the special-warranty effect described in 25 Del. C. § 121 or adds an express title covenant.

Title covenant selection:

☐ No express title warranty is added by this Instrument.

☐ The following reviewed title covenant applies: [________________________________].

4. Permitted Purpose, Rights, and Limits

Permitted purpose: [ACCESS / UTILITIES / DRAINAGE / PARKING / CONSERVATION / OTHER — DESCRIBE PRECISELY].

Grantee may exercise only the checked and completed rights:

☐ pedestrian ingress and egress;

☐ vehicular ingress and egress for [VEHICLE CLASS / HOURS / FREQUENCY];

☐ install, operate, inspect, maintain, repair, replace, relocate, or remove [UTILITY / FACILITY];

☐ drainage or stormwater use under [APPROVED PLAN / PERMIT];

☐ enter with personnel, vehicles, and equipment reasonably necessary for the permitted purpose;

☐ remove a specifically identified obstruction after the notice and restoration process below;

☐ other: [________________________________].

The Easement does not authorize expansion beyond its stated purpose, geometry, intensity, users, or approvals. It does not independently supply a permit, utility franchise, environmental approval, subdivision approval, access permit, construction license, or right across property not owned by Grantor.

5. Work, Access, and Restoration

Grantee will perform authorized work in a safe and workmanlike manner, comply with applicable requirements, minimize interference outside the Easement Area, and restore disturbed property to the agreed standard.

6. Maintenance, Cost, and Insurance Schedule

No unpaid amount automatically becomes a lien, rent charge, property-tax assessment, or ground for extinguishing the Easement unless current law and a separately reviewed instrument provide that result.

7. Interference and Reserved Rights

Grantor retains all uses of the Servient Property that do not unreasonably interfere with the expressly granted rights. Grantee will not use land outside the Easement Area except with written permission or other lawful authority.

8. Transfer and Successor Treatment

If appurtenant, identify exactly how the benefit and burden pass with the described properties. If in gross, state whether the interest is personal, divisible, transferable, licensable, or assignable and to whom.

Transfer rule: [________________________________].

Assumption requirement: [________________________________].

Partial conveyance or subdivision treatment: [________________________________].

This Instrument does not label a covenant as running with land merely by using that phrase. Counsel must confirm the intended benefit, burden, notice, privity, assignability, and effect of later subdivision or combination.

9. Title, Priority, and Recording

The parties will deliver the fully executed and acknowledged Instrument and its recordable exhibits to [PARTY / CLOSING AGENT] for prompt recording in the recorder’s office for the county where the affected land is located. If affected land lies in more than one county, record in every required county.

Under 25 Del. C. § 153, deed priority runs from recording in the proper office. The parties therefore reject the former template’s invented universal 10-business-day statutory deadline and instead use this closing instruction: [TARGET DATE / ESCROW CONDITION].

Recording responsibility and cost allocation:

Recording checklist:

☐ Parcel identification number appears conspicuously.

☐ “Prepared by” name and address appear on the first page.

☐ Grantee address appears on or is attached to the deed.

☐ Legal descriptions and record references are final.

☐ Instrument contains no covenant prohibited by 9 Del. C. § 9605(b).

☐ Notarial officer’s name and title are legible.

☐ County format, tax, affidavit, fee, and cover requirements are satisfied.

10. Termination and Record Clearing

The Easement may end only through a route selected and reviewed for this interest:

☐ expiration of the fixed term or condition expressly stated here: [________________________________];

☐ written release signed and acknowledged by every holder whose interest is released and recorded in each proper county;

☐ written agreement of all owners and holders whose interests are affected, executed and recorded in recordable form;

☐ final court order or other adjudication suitable for recording; or

☐ another Delaware-law route identified by counsel: [________________________________].

Nonuse, breach, bankruptcy, changed circumstances, alleged abandonment, merger of ownership, condemnation, or a unilateral affidavit does not automatically clear the public record under this Instrument. Counsel must determine the legal effect and record-clearing evidence.

11. Breach, Remedies, and Risk Allocation

Except for emergency relief or a claim for which notice would be futile or unlawful, a party asserting breach will give written notice describing the breach and the requested cure. Cure period: [________________________________].

Available remedies, bonds, defenses, damages, fees, and costs are determined by the Instrument and applicable law. This Instrument does not promise an injunction without bond, automatic specific performance, automatic prevailing-party fees, punitive-damages exclusion, liability cap, self-help entry beyond the Easement, or automatic extinguishment for breach.

Any negotiated indemnity or fee provision must be inserted here after claim, fault, defense-control, insurance, third-party, and property-interest review:

[____________________________________________________________]

12. Notices and Administrative Terms

Amendment, relocation, assignment, release, or termination affecting the recorded interest must be executed and recorded in the form needed to give the intended property-law effect. A private email or electronic signature does not by itself establish that a recorder’s standards, acknowledgment, authority, or recording requirements were met.

Delaware law permits qualifying electronic real-property documents and signatures, but the receiving recorder’s electronic-recording standards and all other required information still control.

13. Execution

The parties execute this Instrument as of the date above. Each signatory represents only that the signatory has the authority stated in the signature block. Attach resolutions, certificates, powers, consents, or fiduciary authority when required.

Additional affected owner / consenting party:

Legal name: [________________________________]

Signature and capacity: ______________________________________

Date: [________________]

14. Delaware Acknowledgment — Individual Capacity

State of ____________________

County of __________________

This record was acknowledged before me on [DATE] by [NAME OF INDIVIDUAL].

Signature of notarial officer: ______________________________________

Title of office: [________________________________]

My commission expires: [________________________________]

Official stamp: [AFFIX]

15. Delaware Acknowledgment — Representative Capacity

State of ____________________

County of __________________

This record was acknowledged before me on [DATE] by [NAME OF INDIVIDUAL], as [TYPE OF AUTHORITY] of [NAME OF PARTY ON WHOSE BEHALF THE RECORD WAS EXECUTED].

Signature of notarial officer: ______________________________________

Title of office: [________________________________]

My commission expires: [________________________________]

Official stamp: [AFFIX]

Use the acknowledgment that matches the actual signer and capacity. The notarial officer must complete the contemporaneous certificate and identification process required by current law.

Exhibits

• Exhibit A: Servient Property legal description and current deed reference
• Exhibit B: Dominant Property legal description and current deed reference, if any
• Exhibit C: Easement Area legal description and signed survey / plat
• Exhibit D: Title exceptions, priority agreement, subordination, joinder, or consent
• Exhibit E: Plans, construction standards, maintenance map, and cost schedule
• Exhibit F: Entity, fiduciary, spousal, or other authority documents

Practice Notes — Remove Before Recording

• Treat the instrument as a deed affecting land, not as generic commercial boilerplate.
• Decide whether “grant and convey” is intended to create the special-warranty effect described by 25 Del. C. § 121.
• Do not use a grantor-recorded abandonment affidavit or breach notice as a private title eraser.
• Recheck each county recorder’s current standards; 9 Del. C. § 9605 authorizes format regulations and county-specific filing steps remain operationally important.
• Use the current official § 9605 protected-class language and do not copy restrictive covenants from an older instrument.

Official References

• 25 Del. C. Chapter 1, Subchapter I — https://delcode.delaware.gov/title25/c001/sc01/index.html
• 25 Del. C. Chapter 1, Subchapter II — https://delcode.delaware.gov/title25/c001/sc02/index.html
• 25 Del. C. Chapter 1, Subchapter III — https://delcode.delaware.gov/title25/c001/sc03/index.html
• 25 Del. C. Chapter 1, Subchapter V — https://delcode.delaware.gov/title25/c001/sc05/index.html
• 9 Del. C. Chapter 96 — https://delcode.delaware.gov/title9/c096/index.html
• 29 Del. C. Chapter 43, Subchapter II — https://delcode.delaware.gov/title29/c043/sc02/index.html