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Draft or audit a recordable easement

Produces an easement the recorder will accept and the title underwriter will insure, with the maintenance mechanics, subordination, and running-with-the-land language most drafts leave out.

About 15 minintermediateReal estate

Your prompt5,018 characters

Still to fill in: Purpose, parcels, and parties, Maintenance and cost allocation, Recording state and county

RoleYou are a real-estate lawyer who has recorded hundreds of easements and had a few kicked back by the recorder or excepted out of an owner's title policy. You write the legal description before the covenants, and you refuse to grant rights "over the parking area" without a surveyed exhibit.What I needHandle the easement below for recording in Recording state and county. Path: Draft a new easement. Drafting means a recordable instrument plus a checklist; auditing means running what I received against the same points and telling me what to fix.InputsPurpose, parcels, and parties: Purpose, parcels, and parties Maintenance and cost allocation: Maintenance and cost allocation Encumbrances on the burdened parcel: Encumbrances of record on the burdened parcel Existing instrument, if auditing: Existing instrument, if auditingHow to work this1. Fix the type in one line: appurtenant or in gross, exclusive or non-exclusive, perpetual or term. If the inputs do not settle it, choose, name the choice, and say what changes if I pick the other. 2. Do not invent a legal description. If the inputs lack one sufficient to record, write the exhibit reference and say what the surveyor must deliver. 3. Enumerate permitted and prohibited uses as separate clauses, and say in the instrument that unenumerated uses fall outside the grant. 4. Turn Maintenance and cost allocation into mechanics: who performs, to what standard, who invoices, when payment is due, and a self-help cure with interest and a lien remedy. "Reasonable share" is not a term. 5. Make burden and benefit run: successors clause plus recordation in the county named in Recording state and county. 6. Read Encumbrances of record on the burdened parcel. If a mortgage or ground lease predates this grant, draft the subordination as an exhibit. A junior easement can be extinguished at foreclosure. 7. Close with a recordation checklist: acknowledgment form, county formatting and fees, subordinations, recorded-copy distribution, and the title endorsement to request.Close with these four sections, every time, without being askedAssumptions I made. Which parcel is dominant, whether the grantor holds fee title, whether the described area sits entirely within the servient parcel, and whose law governs the running covenant. Mark each [verify] or [safe]. Where this is weakest. The two or three clauses most likely to draw a title exception, a recorder rejection, or a fight between successor owners. Name the section, not "the document generally." What only you can decide. Present each as options with tradeoffs. At minimum: perpetual versus term-with-renewal: perpetual is what the dominant owner's lender wants but permanently discounts the servient parcel, while a term keeps flexibility and guarantees a renegotiation at the worst possible moment; and exclusive versus non-exclusive, where exclusivity protects the use but costs more and may need lender consent. Price, relationship, and how hard to push on subordination are yours. What would make this materially better. Rank by impact: the title commitment with its Schedule B exceptions, the ALTA survey, the recorded descriptions of both parcels, and the lender's posture on subordination.Output formatDrafting path: the numbered instrument in recordable order (recitals through acknowledgment blocks and exhibits), then the recordation checklist, then the four closing sections. Audit path: a one-line disposition (Sign / Fix first / Do not sign), a table of Section | As drafted | Problem | Replacement language, then the four closing sections.Never do this- If the instrument would work equally well for any two parcels in any county, it is too generic. Start over from this use, these parcels, this cost split. - No hedging filler. Cut "arguably," "it should be noted," and "this is fairly standard" used in place of analysis. Do not tell me to consult an attorney. I am the one recording this. - Never invent a legal description, a book-and-page reference, a recording fee, or a statutory acknowledgment form. Anything not in my inputs gets [UNVERIFIED - confirm with the recorder]. - Where you do not know how Recording state and county treats a running covenant or the acknowledgment wording, say so rather than drafting through the gap. - Do not pad with boilerplate that carries no consequence here. A clean access easement does not need twenty-two sections. Length is not value.Before you answer- Is every right tied to a described area, or did I grant a right "over the property"? - Does the maintenance clause say who pays, by when, and what happens when they do not? - Did I address the lender on the burdened parcel, or quietly ignore it? - Would this be useless to someone recording a different easement? It should be. - Is every fee and form sourced from my inputs or marked unverified?

Adds driver's-seat tunes: options instead of answers, questions before work, every citation flagged. Your values come with it.

2

Pressure-test it

Makes the AI switch hats and attack its own answer.

Would a title underwriter insure the dominant owner's access without exception on this instrument as drafted? Answer as the underwriter. Name the two items you would except out on Schedule B as written, the one item that would force a survey or an ALTA 17-series endorsement, and the one item you would refuse to insure at any price. Then rewrite only those clauses to clear underwriting without changing the deal the parties made.
3

Go deeper

Pushes the work further once the basics are right.

An easement that is signed but not properly recorded protects nobody. Draft the two documents that travel with the executed instrument: the recorder cover sheet and transmittal to the county, and a one-page post-recording memo to the title officer, the servient owner's lender, and both parties' counsel confirming what was recorded, the instrument number to expect, and the endorsements being requested.

Before you run it

What to gather first

  • Which parcel is dominant and which is servient, with recorded legal descriptions if you have them
  • Whether a survey or recorded plat exists for the easement area
  • Every mortgage, deed of trust, ground lease, or CC&R of record on the burdened parcel
  • The county where the instrument will be recorded and any local form rules
  • Whether the easement is permanent or tied to a construction period or a use

Watch for

  • The model cannot generate a valid legal description. Any metes-and-bounds text it produces is a placeholder. Get the surveyor's description before recording.
  • If a mortgage or deed of trust on the burdened parcel predates the easement, an unsubordinated easement can be wiped out at foreclosure. Confirm the lender consent is recorded first.
  • Recording form requirements (margins, first-page reserved space, font size, acknowledgment wording) are county-specific and change. Verify with the recorder before submitting.
  • Maintenance and cost-sharing without a stated cure, interest rate, and lien remedy is the most common source of easement litigation between successor owners.
  • Conservation easements, and any easement claimed as a charitable deduction, carry separate state and federal requirements this prompt does not address.

What comes back

Drafting path: a recordable easement instrument with recitals, grant, described easement area, term, permitted and prohibited uses, reserved rights, maintenance mechanics, liens, indemnity and insurance, default remedies, runs-with-the-land, subordination, recordation, and acknowledgment blocks, followed by a recordation checklist. Audit path: a Sign / Fix first / Do not sign disposition, a section-by-section table with replacement language, and the recordation and title gaps. Both close with the four collaboration sections.

See an example of what you’ll get
EASEMENT AGREEMENT (Access, Utility, and Monument Sign), for recording in the Official Records of Alameda County, California 2. Grant. Servient Owner grants to Dominant Owner, its successors and assigns, a perpetual, non-exclusive, appurtenant easement over that portion of the Servient Parcel described on Exhibit A-3 and depicted on Exhibit B (the "Easement Area") for the purposes set forth in Section 4. Uses not enumerated in Section 4 are outside the grant. 3. Easement Area. A strip 24 feet in width running east-west along the southern boundary of the Servient Parcel. *[UNVERIFIED - no recorded description supplied. Exhibit A-3 must be a surveyor-prepared metes-and-bounds description tied to a monument on the recorded plat; the title company will not plot "the southern strip."]* 7. Maintenance and Cost-Sharing. Servient Owner shall maintain the driveway surface and lighting in a condition consistent with a first-class retail center. Servient Owner shall resurface the driveway at intervals of not less than seven and not more than ten years and shall invoice Dominant Owner for thirty-five percent (35%) of documented cost. Dominant Owner shall pay within thirty (30) days of invoice with reasonable backup. If either Owner fails to perform within thirty (30) days after written notice, the other may perform and recover its cost plus interest at the lesser of nine percent (9%) per annum or the maximum lawful rate, which amount shall constitute a lien on the defaulting Owner's parcel upon recordation of a notice of lien. 12. Subordination. Servient Owner shall cause Pacific Western Bank to execute and record the subordination attached as Exhibit C concurrently with or prior to this Agreement. Recordation checklist. - California all-purpose acknowledgment (Civ. Code § 1189 form) for both signatures. - Alameda County first-page recording space and margin requirements [UNVERIFIED - confirm current formatting rules with the recorder]. - Pacific Western subordination executed and recorded first or concurrently. - Deliver the recorded instrument to the title officer and request the access and utility endorsements to the owner's policy. --- Assumptions I made. The 24-foot strip lies entirely within Parcel A [verify - no survey supplied]. Olive Tree Plaza Holdings holds fee title unencumbered by a ground lease [verify]. California law governs whether the burden runs [safe]. Where this is weakest. Section 3. Without a surveyed description this instrument is recordable but not insurable without exception, and the monument-sign right in Section 4(c) has no defined location at all. That is the clause a successor owner will litigate. What only you can decide. Perpetual versus a 30-year term with renewal: perpetual is what Northshore's lender will want to see and what supports the sign investment, but it permanently discounts Parcel A and Olive Tree will price it; a term keeps the servient owner's flexibility and guarantees a renegotiation at exactly the moment your client has the least leverage. Also yours: whether to condition closing on the Pacific Western subordination, which is the correct legal answer but may cost you thirty days. What would make this materially better. (1) The ALTA survey: it resolves Section 3 and the sign location together. (2) The Schedule B exceptions from the current title commitment on Parcel A. (3) Whether Pacific Western has consented to easements on this parcel before, which tells us how hard Section 12 will be.
Why this prompt is built the way it is
## Framework 1. **Type first.** Appurtenant or in gross; affirmative or negative; exclusive or non-exclusive; perpetual or term. Everything downstream depends on this call. 2. **Location governs insurability.** A description the title company cannot plot becomes an exception on the commitment. Never invent metes and bounds. Name what the surveyor must produce. 3. **Scope is a closed set.** Enumerate permitted uses and prohibited uses separately, and say that unenumerated uses fall outside the grant. 4. **Maintenance needs mechanics, not intentions.** Who performs, to what standard, who invoices, when payment is due, and the self-help cure with interest and a lien remedy. 5. **Running with the land is a recording question.** The successors clause plus recordation in the right county is what binds the next owner. 6. **Subordination or nothing.** An easement junior to a recorded mortgage can be extinguished at foreclosure. Get the lender's consent recorded first. 7. **Close with the recordation checklist.** Acknowledgment form, county formatting, fees, subordinations, recorded-copy distribution, and the title endorsement to request.