What are "trespass" and "easement"?

What are "trespass" and "easement"?

Howard Gould (Neighbor Law Expert, Finestone & Richter) gives expert video advice on: What are "trespass" and "easement"?; Is trespassing a criminal act? and more...

Trespass is entry onto a neighbor's property without permission, which nobody has the right to do. An easement is actually a right to use someone else's property, it's usually a recorded document and the typical kinds of easements that you see, the two most frequent, are an easement for what's called ingress and egress such as a roadway or a sidewalk, a walkway over your neighbor's property. And the other frequent easement is one for utility purposes where the utilities to your house may actually run across a neighbor's property. You'd need get an easement, which would need to be in writing and would need to be recorded, that would give you or anybody who buys your property from you the right to use your neighbors property. In urban areas there are easements of all kinds and they're very common, especially the roadway easements and the utility easements.