LandCheck.

Guides › Access

Legal access vs physical access

The single most common way a cheap rural lot turns out to be unusable: a road runs right past it on the map, and you have no right to use it. The two are different questions, and only one of them can be answered from a map.

Physical access

Physical access means a road actually reaches the parcel: a public road along the boundary, a driveway, a farm track, a shared private lane. It is what you see on aerial imagery and what LandCheck's Road access row reports on every parcel click, using US Census and OpenStreetMap road lines around the boundary:

Touches a public road	A public road runs along the boundary or through the lot. Physical access is straightforward; you may still need a driveway permit.
Touches a mapped road	A road reaches the lot, but the map does not say whether it is public or privately maintained. Ask the county road department.
Mapped road nearby	A road passes close by, but the map does not say whether it is public or privately maintained, and it does not touch the parcel. Ask the county road department, and how you would reach it.
Public road nearby	A public road passes within a short distance but does not touch the parcel. Something crosses someone else's land to reach it.
Only a private road or track nearby	The only road is a private, service or track road. Who owns it, and who is allowed on it, is a deed question.
No public road found nearby	Nothing mapped reaches the parcel. This is where "landlocked" lots hide, but the map cannot say that: mapping gaps exist.

Legal access

Legal access means a recorded right to reach the parcel: frontage on a public right-of-way, or a recorded easement across a neighbour's land. It lives in documents, not on the map. The places it shows up:

• The current deed and the deeds in the chain before it
• A recorded easement or right-of-way agreement
• The recorded subdivision plat
• A road maintenance agreement for a shared private road
• A title commitment's Schedule B exceptions

A private road that everyone has used for forty years may still carry no recorded right. Some states recognise prescriptive or implied easements, or an easement by necessity for land cut off when a larger tract was split, but proving one is a lawsuit, not a closing.

How to check, in order

1. Click the parcel on the map. Read the Road access row and look at the aerial imagery. Note the name of the road and whether the boundary touches it.
2. Open the deed records link in the same panel. Search the recorder for the parcel's owner and read the legal description; look for "together with a right-of-way" or "subject to an easement" language and for any recorded easement documents.
3. Ask the seller for legal access in writing. A listing that says "access via easement" should be able to produce the recorded instrument, with a book and page number.
4. Make the contract conditional on insurable access. Title companies will insure access when it is on record; if they exclude it, that is your answer.
5. For a private road, get the maintenance agreement and ask who plows it.

Open the map with parcels on →

Sources

• Cornell Law School, Legal Information Institute: easement and prescriptive easement
• US Census road maps (TIGER) and OpenStreetMap, the road data behind the Road access row

Related guides

• How to check a piece of land
• Buying tax-deed and tax-delinquent land
• HOA covenants and deed restrictions on raw land
• What unrestricted land means and how to check it
• How to read a zoning code

What the parcel source shows in each county LandCheck covers: parcel maps by county.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Access law varies by state; a real estate attorney or title company in the county is the person to confirm it.