What is an easement on a property? A recorded right for someone else to use part of your land for a stated purpose, which runs with the land and survives every sale.
An easement is a right for someone other than the owner to use part of a parcel for a defined purpose. It is not ownership and it moves no land: the owner keeps title to the strip, pays the tax on it, and may use it in any way that does not interfere with the right. Most are recorded, which is what makes an easement run with the land: it binds the next owner and the one after, read or not. The usual kinds are utility easements along the lot lines for power, water, sewer and drainage; access easements across a neighbor's land to reach a parcel with no frontage; the public right of way at the street; and conservation, drainage or view easements, which limit what may be built rather than granting a way through.
What an easement takes is the right to build over it. A utility easement along the back few feet of a lot is the standard Las Vegas surprise: the pool contractor finds the sewer easement at the design stage, and the pool moves, shrinks or stops, because the utility is entitled to dig. Walls, sheds, additions and mature trees raise it too, and a structure put up over one can be required to come out at the owner's expense. Easements can also arise with no document. Nevada follows the general rule that open, notorious, continuous and adverse use of another's land for an uninterrupted five years can establish a prescriptive easement, which comes from the case law rather than a statute and turns on the specific facts.
A buyer finds them in two places. The preliminary title report lists them among its exceptions, a line each with a recording number, and only the recorded document shows where the strip runs and how wide it is. The recorded subdivision map draws them, and a survey ties them to the ground, which settles an argument about a fence or an addition. Standard title insurance does not insure over a recorded easement: it is taken as an exception, which is the policy saying you were told.
A worked example
A buyer under contract at $475,000 plans a pool. The preliminary title report shows a 10-foot public utility easement across the rear of the lot and a 5-foot drainage easement down one side. The rear yard is 28 feet deep, so 18 feet of it is buildable, and the $65,000 pool as drawn will not fit. Redesigning it into what is left costs about $9,000 more for a smaller pool. Finding it in the title report during the due diligence period cost nothing; finding it after closing would have cost the design fee and the choice.
Read the county record a parcel sits on
Questions people ask
Can you build a fence or a pool on an easement?
Usually not on a utility easement, and never in a way its holder cannot get through. Some jurisdictions and utilities allow a removable fence across one and none allow a permanent structure, so ask the utility and the building department before anything is drawn.
Can an easement be removed from a property?
Sometimes, by a recorded release from whoever holds it, which a utility grants only where it has no further use for the strip. Others end on their own terms or when the need behind them disappears. Assume it stays, and price the lot on what can be built around it.