PropertyFlags · guideEasements: the lines on the plan that decide what you can build
An easement is the least dramatic thing that can ruin a renovation plan: a registered right someone else holds over a strip of your land. Here is what the common ones mean, how to find them before you are committed, and why the map and the title are two different answers.
The common kinds, in plain terms
Rights of way let someone cross your land, usually a shared driveway; they stay open. Drainage easements carry stormwater under or across the lot, often along a rear boundary, and the authority can dig them up when it needs to. Sewer easements do the same for wastewater mains. Easements for services carry power or water to a neighbour. Each is registered, each binds every future owner, and each limits what can be built on its strip.
The practical translation: pools, extensions, garages and granny flats are designed around easements, not on top of them. Consent to build over one is sometimes possible and never guaranteed, which is why the time to know is before the offer, not at the DA stage.
Map versus title: two different answers
The mapped cadastre shows the easements the mapping system knows about, free and instantly. It is a genuine early signal and an incomplete one: easements created only in documents, covenants and restrictions on use never appear on the map. The complete record is the title and, in NSW, the section 88B instrument behind the plan; your conveyancer orders and reads it.
So the honest sequence is: map first, for free, when you shortlist; title before you commit. A mapped easement is real enough to change your plans today. A clean map is a reason to keep checking, not a reason to stop.
The 60 second version
A PropertyFlags report checks the mapped easements intersecting any NSW lot and prints the count with the lot diagram. When the map shows easements, the report says what that restricts and points you to the 88B instrument for the detail. When the map shows none, the report says exactly what this page says: the map is not the title, and some easements live only in documents. That sentence is in the report because leaving it out would be the comfortable lie.
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Common questions
What is an easement?
A registered right someone else holds over part of your land: a neighbour's right of way along the drive, a council drainage line under the back corner, a water authority's sewer main. You own the land; they hold a defined right over that strip, and that right survives the sale.
Can I build over an easement?
Usually not without the consent of whoever holds it, and for drainage and sewer easements that consent has conditions or is refused. In practice an easement through the middle of a backyard can rule out the pool, the extension or the granny flat. The safe assumption is that the strip is not yours to build on until proven otherwise.
How do I find out if a property has easements, free?
Two places, and they can disagree. The mapped cadastre shows easements the mapping system knows about, an early free signal. The title, with its section 88B instrument in NSW, is the legal record and the only complete one; your conveyancer orders it. Some easements exist only in documents and never appear on any map.
The map shows no easements. Is the title clear?
Not proven. The map is not the title: document only easements, covenants and restrictions do not appear in mapped layers. A zero on the map narrows the question; the section 88B instrument answers it. Any honest report says both halves of that sentence.