Georgia property law regarding public and private rights of ways and easements is complicated. The lawyers at Teague & Chambless, LLLP have litigated cases in trial and appellate courts in Georgia regarding various types of easements, and rights in private and public roads, streets and alleys.
Rights to pass along a road or street in Georgia are either privately owned and enjoyed, or are enjoyed by reason of being a member of the public. A public right of way can exist where a government entity, such as the state, a county or a municipality, owns title to the land under the road, or where the government entity owns an easement over the land of a private owner.
Outright ownership of title to a public road by the government is not as common as generally assumed. Many subdivision streets in Forsyth County, Georgia and Fulton County exist as an easement over the private property of another person.
Private rights of way may also arise under an easement, license, and right to pass over land titled in the name of another landowner, or by virtue of ownership of title to a strip of land bisecting another owner's property. Private rights of way may be confined to the persons who own the rights or a defined group, but not always.
Easements are not limited to rights in streets or roads. An easement is a generally a right that one landowner enjoys in relation to a use or a restriction on another person's real estate. A property owner may enjoy an easement to use a ditch, a "drainage easement," or a right to maintain a certain slope over another person's property: a "slope easement."
Easements can exist in rights to power lines and transmission lines, driveways, curb cuts, paths, docks, fishing, and lake access, such as access to docks on Lake Lanier. Easements may arise in detention ponds, ditches for drainage from ponds and lakes, or in underground conduits for pipes or wires. The right to extract minerals where another person owns the mineral rights may involve an access easement to mine.
The nature of the rights enjoyed affect legal relations among landowners in many different contexts. Where a county or municipality abandons a public road or street, the nature of the underlying ownership can affect who gets the property following the abandonment. Disputes also arise regarding whether a government has the power to abandon a public thoroughfare, such as streets in a subdivision.
Property owners that are cut from a public road also often have disputes with their neighbors that own the land around an access driveway or drive. Use of drainage areas also implicates easement laws.
