What is the difference between an easement in gross and an easement appurtenant to land in Ontario?

An easement appurtenant is attached to and benefits a specific piece of land, called the dominant tenement, rather than benefiting a particular person. The classic example is a neighbour's right of way over an adjoining lot, which exists to benefit whichever property currently qualifies as the dominant tenement. Because it's tied to the land itself, it passes automatically to whoever owns that dominant property, without needing to be re-granted every time it's sold.

An easement in gross, by contrast, benefits a specific person or entity rather than a piece of neighbouring land. Utility and pipeline easements are common examples, where the right exists for the utility company's operations rather than to benefit some other parcel it happens to own nearby. Whether an easement in gross can be transferred or assigned to someone else depends on how it was originally created and worded, since it isn't automatically tied to land ownership the way an appurtenant easement is.

The practical difference matters most when land changes hands: an appurtenant easement moves with a sale of the dominant property without any extra paperwork, while an easement in gross needs its own specific terms to determine whether and how it can be transferred at all.