How to Find Your Easements

Start by looking up your lot on the drawings here. These are the original blueprints of the subdivision, digitized for easy access. These drawings show both water and pedestrian easements, but not the landscaping easements.

Most lots have an easement in the rear of the lot for underground water pipelines. Whereever your water meter is there will be an easement allowing access to HSCA employees to maintain the meter, and the pipeline underneath it.

There is a main water pipeline that starts above the HSRE Community Center and ends at Papio Street. This water pipeline has a ten foot easement on all properties at the ends of the road. There are also water pipeline easements where there are fire hydrants in the middle of the street, although some of these easements are also pedestrian easements. All of these easements will be shown on the drawing.

As an example, here is a snippet from one of the drawings that shows landscaping and water pipeline easements. Lot 635 and 637 have two water pipeline easements highlighted in blue. One easement is next to the southern property line for the main pipeline that goes the length of the subdivision (it’s called, easement “A-1” in your deed). The other is in the back of the properties. Highlighted in green is the landscaping easement. The landscaping easements are the, “B” easements mentioned in your deed.

Here is another example. Shown is a water pipeline easement in highlighted in blue, a pedestrian easement highlighted in yellow, and a landscape easement in highlighted in green.

Lot number 619 and 621 have three easements each. There are water pipeline easements in the rear, they share a pedestrian easement straddling their common property line, and a landscape easement on the road in the front.

Understanding the Legalese

Here is an example of the portion of a typical deed describing your easements. Typically, they are described with a reference code (such as “A-52”, or “B-72”) so that the details of the easement can be described in a Liber (meaning, “book”). This way the full description only needs to be written once, not duplicated in every deed. This description also refers to a map that is actually the drawing discussed above.

The above property has three easements described in it’s deed. A five foot wide water line easement (“A-52”), a five foot wide landscaping easement (“B-74”), and a five foot wide pedestrian walkway easement (“C-30”).

Water line easements always start with an “A”. Easement A-1 is a long easement that starts at the water yard and continues down to the end of the water main at Papio Street. Easement A-2 is an easement for the lateral between Aama and Ahi Streets. The next lateral is A-3, then A-4, etc. This number scheme continues all the way until Papio Street at the bottom of the subdivision.

Landscaping easements always start with a, “B”. There is one long easement on each side of the street. For example, Ahi Street has easement B-2 on one side, and B-3 on the other. Aholehole Street has B-4 on one side, then B-5 on the other. Again, this number scheme continues until Papio Street.

Pedestrian easements always start with, “C”. These easements connect two streets together creating a shortcut for walking. The first “C” easement (“C-1”) is between Aama and Ahi Streets, then C-2 is between Ahi and Aholehole Street, C-3 is between the next two streets, continuing to the last pedestrian easement that ends at Opae Street.

The details of these easements can be found in Liber (“book”) 7974, page 358. A copy is located here. There are other Libers, and/or books referenced in your deed. Some of these are amendments (Liber 8199, page 435 amends 7974, page 358). Most of the Liber, or Books mentioned in your deed are amendments to our CCnR’s. To get the most recent CCnR’s please refer to our website here.

To get a particular Liber and Page, write to:

Bureau of Conveyances
1151 Punchbowl Street
Honolulu, HI. 96813

Include a self addressed envelope large enough for 8.5”x11” documents. You will have to make arrangements with the BoC to for copying costs for these documents. They can be reached at (808) 587-0147. Alternatively, if you are in Honolulu, you can purchase these documents at the BoC’s desk.