What Does Landlocked Mean in Real Estate?

Landlocked means a piece of land has no legal access to a public road. It is surrounded by other people's property, so the only way in or out is across land the owner has no recorded right to cross. The land can still be owned, taxed and sold.

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That is the short version. The rest of this page explains what the word covers, what it does not cover, and why the difference between a road on the ground and a right on paper matters so much to owners, buyers and lenders.

Landlocked meaning in one sentence

The landlocked definition used in real estate is simple: a landlocked parcel is one that cannot be reached from a public road without crossing someone else's land.

Cornell Law School's legal dictionary puts it almost the same way. It defines landlocked as a parcel that lacks direct access to a public roadway and can only be reached by crossing another person's property.

You will see the word written a few ways. They all mean the same thing:

• Landlocked property or landlocked land: the everyday terms.
• Land locked (two words): a common spelling with the same meaning.
• No legal access or no road frontage: how listings, appraisals and title reports often describe it.
• Interior parcel: a lot that sits behind other lots with no strip of its own reaching the road.

This page sticks to the definition. For the full picture of owning, using and selling this kind of land, see our landlocked property guide.

Landlocked land vs landlocked countries

Many people who look up the word are thinking of geography. A landlocked country is one with no coastline, such as Switzerland or Bolivia. The idea is similar, since both are closed in on every side, but the real estate meaning is about roads and legal rights. A parcel can be a short walk from a paved highway and still be landlocked if the land in between belongs to someone else. Everything below is about the real estate meaning.

Physical access vs legal access

This is the part of the definition that surprises most owners. Being able to get to your land and having the right to get to your land are two separate things.

A parcel with physical access and no legal access is still landlocked. Owners often learn this years after buying or inheriting. A family may have used a neighbor's lane for decades on a handshake. Then the neighbor sells, the new owner puts up a gate, and the family finds out there was never anything in writing. The law calls that kind of permission a license. Cornell's legal dictionary describes a license to use land as permission to enter property that would otherwise be a trespass. An easement is stronger. Cornell's easement entry explains that an easement transfers along with the land it benefits.

The opposite can also happen. A parcel may have a recorded easement that nobody has cleared or driven in years. On the ground it looks cut off, but on paper it has access, so it is not legally landlocked.

Either way, what counts is what the county records show, not what the ground looks like.

Examples of landlocked parcels

The classic case is a back lot. One or more lots front the road, and another lot sits behind them with no strip of land connecting it to the pavement.

Other common examples:

• The back forty. A farm is split among heirs. One heir gets the acreage along the county road. Another gets the back pasture, and the deed says nothing about crossing the front.
• Timber or hunting land. A wooded tract reached only by an old logging road that runs through a neighbor's property with no written agreement.
• Land cut off by a barrier. A parcel that touches a river, railroad line or limited-access highway on one side and private land on the others. It may border a road it has no right to enter. Washington law, in RCW 47.52.010, defines a limited access highway as one that owners of the land beside it have no right, or only a limited right, to enter.
• Private land inside public land. A parcel surrounded by government-owned land with no public road leading to it. A federal law, 16 U.S.C. 3210, tells the government to provide the access it finds adequate for reasonable use of private land inside a national forest, subject to agency rules.

How land becomes landlocked

Land is rarely landlocked from the start. Something in its history cut it off. These are the four most common causes.

Subdivision without an access plan

A large tract gets divided into smaller pieces, and one piece ends up with no frontage. This was common in older family splits and informal divisions done before counties reviewed plats closely.

Sold-off frontage

An owner sells the strip along the road and keeps the land behind it, or sells the back and keeps the front. If the deed does not reserve or grant a way across, the back piece is cut off. Many states treat this as a case where the law implies an easement because the two pieces once had the same owner. Florida's statute, for example, presumes a right of way was granted or reserved when someone conveys land that cannot be reached except over the land they kept.

Road abandonment

A county or town can formally close or vacate a road it no longer wants to maintain. Florida Statutes section 336.09, for example, lets county commissioners vacate, abandon and close a road. Parcels that depended on that road may be left without public access unless the closure order protects them.

Tax sales

Counties sell parcels for unpaid property taxes, often sight unseen. Interior lots with no access show up at these auctions often, in part because earlier owners stopped paying taxes on land they could not use. Buyers sometimes learn the parcel is landlocked only after the sale. Washington's tax foreclosure statute, RCW 84.64.080, says the property must be sold "as is," with no warranty about its location or fitness for any use.

Why landlocked land is worth less

Land with no legal access usually sells for less than similar land with road frontage. How much less depends on the parcel, the state and the neighbors, so there is no honest single number. The reasons behind the discount are consistent:

• Financing is hard to get. Most lenders want proof of legal access before they will lend on land. For home loans, Fannie Mae's Selling Guide, B4-1.3-04, says a site must have adequate vehicular access.
• Building is often blocked. Many counties will not issue a building permit for a lot with no legal access. Santa Cruz County, California, for example, says a parcel may not be used as a building site unless its frontage and access are on a public or private right of way.
• Utilities and emergency services need a legal route to reach the land.
• Fewer buyers are interested, and the ones who are tend to pay cash and price in the cost of solving access.
• Fixing access takes money and time, with no promise of how it will turn out.

The owner still pays property taxes every year the land sits unused. For a closer look at pricing, see what landlocked land is worth.

What owners can do

Owners of landlocked land have three broad choices: hold the land, seek legal access, or sell it as it is.

Legal access usually means an easement, a legal right to cross someone else's land for a set purpose. It comes from a neighbor's agreement or from a court, and some states have a statute for it. Washington calls its version a private way of necessity. We cover the topic in our guide on how to get access.

Seeking access depends on a neighbor or a judge, and it can take a long time. Some owners are in a spot where it does not make sense: the neighbor has refused, the legal fees could run higher than the land is worth, or the parcel was inherited and nobody in the family plans to use it. If that is where you are, you can request a cash offer for your landlocked land and sell it without solving access first.

Common questions