## Facts

- Patrick and Susan Kosterman purchased a home on a four-acre parcel that lacked access to a public road except through recorded easements over a neighboring 80-acre parcel.
- The dominant and servient parcels were once commonly owned. When the smaller parcel was conveyed to family members in 1960, the grantors also provided a recorded right-of-way because the parcel had no public-road access.
- Additional recorded access rights followed, including a broader right-of-way created in 1961 that the dominant parcel’s owners used for ingress and egress.
- AKG Real Estate, LLC bought the 80-acre servient parcel in 1998. The recorded easements appeared in the chain of title and were referenced in AKG’s deeds.
- After the Kostermans bought their parcel in 2000, AKG planned a residential subdivision on its 80 acres. AKG’s plan would be easier to implement if the Kostermans’ existing access route could be moved or eliminated.
- The Kostermans refused to accept a different route across AKG’s property, asserting that the recorded express easements entitled them to continue using the established access.
- AKG sued for a declaratory judgment that the Kostermans’ access rights would end once AKG built and provided an alternate route to a public road through the planned subdivision streets.
- The circuit court ruled that an easement referenced in AKG’s 1998 deed would terminate once alternate access was provided, but an earlier easement (including the 1961 easement) would remain.
- The court of appeals concluded that both easements would terminate once AKG provided alternate access. The Kostermans sought review in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether the owner of a servient estate may unilaterally relocate or terminate a recorded express ingress-and-egress easement without the dominant estate’s consent by providing alternate access to a public road.
2. Whether Wisconsin should follow the Restatement (Third) of Property: Servitudes approach that allows unilateral relocation (and related termination concepts) based on reasonableness or satisfaction of purpose.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals.
- The court held that a servient estate owner cannot unilaterally relocate or terminate an express easement without the dominant estate owner’s consent.
- The court rejected adopting Restatement (Third) of Property: Servitudes provisions that would allow unilateral relocation or termination in these circumstances.
- The court concluded that the recorded 1961 express easement remained in effect and was not extinguished merely because AKG could provide another route to a public road.

## Legal Principles

- An express easement is a property interest reflected in the land records; its continued existence and location generally may not be changed by the servient owner acting alone.
- Express access easements do not end simply because the original need for the easement lessens or a different means of access becomes available.
- Unilateral relocation or termination is not a recognized method of extinguishing an express easement in Wisconsin; termination typically requires established doctrines such as release, abandonment, merger, prescription, condemnation, or other legally effective extinguishment.
- Courts favor certainty and reliability in recorded property rights; allowing unilateral changes based on a servient owner’s development plans would create uncertainty in title and increase disputes over whether a change is “reasonable.”

## Conclusion

In *AKG Real Estate, LLC v. Kosterman*, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that a servient landowner may not, without the dominant owner’s consent, relocate or terminate a recorded express right-of-way easement even if the servient owner offers alternate access to a public road, and it refused to adopt Restatement rules that would authorize unilateral relocation or termination based on reasonableness or claimed satisfaction of purpose.


AKG Real Estate, LLC v. Kosterman, 717 N.W.2d 835 (2006)