An easement is an interest in land that is owned by another person and gives the easement holder or easement owner the right to use or control the other person’s land in some limited way—such as the right to drive across another person’s private property to access a public highway or other public road (an ingress-and-egress easement).

There are many different types of easements, depending on the nature of the use of the land—such light-and-air easements; mineral easements; timber easements; noise easements; and railroad easements—and how the easement was acquired—an express easement; an implied easement; a prescriptive easement; an easement by necessity; or an easement by estoppel, for example.

There are also negative easements that prohibit the owner of a property (the servient-estate) from doing something, such as building a home or structure that blocks the view or sunlight for an easement holder—often an adjoining property owner (the dominant estate).

Public utility companies (gas, electricity, telephone, water, sewer, cable, etc.) often have easements to place utility transmission, distribution, or power lines on private property and access them for installation, repair, and maintenance.

Laws regarding easements vary from state to state and may be located in a state’s court opinions (also known as its common law or case law) or in its statutes.

In Nevada, an easement is a legal right to use another person's land for a specific limited purpose. Easements can be created in various ways, including express grants in deeds or other legal documents (express easements), by implication from the circumstances of the creation of the easement (implied easements), by continuous and open use over a period of time without the owner's permission (prescriptive easements), out of necessity, such as for landlocked properties requiring access (easements by necessity), or by reliance on the landowner's representations (easement by estoppel). Nevada recognizes both affirmative easements, which allow the easement holder to perform certain actions on the servient estate, and negative easements, which restrict the servient estate owner from performing certain actions that could affect the dominant estate, such as obstructing a view or sunlight. Utility companies often have statutory easements that allow them to install and maintain infrastructure on private property. The specifics of easement law in Nevada can be found in state statutes, such as those governing real property, and in the decisions of Nevada courts.