How do I know if land has legal access?
Legal access is confirmed from the record, not from a road on the ground. A title examination by a Virginia real estate attorney reads the deed chain and recorded easements for a right to cross, a land surveyor locates where that right-of-way runs, and the VDOT residency for the county confirms whether the road it reaches is in the state system.
Three questions a permit desk asks about the way in
Legal access sounds abstract until a county form turns it into three blanks: does the land front a state road, does it have a right-of-way and how wide is it, and where exactly are its lines.
Those blanks come straight off local paperwork. Wythe County wants to know, before a building permit, whether the land touches a state-maintained road or reaches one by right-of-way, and the width of that right-of-way. Grayson's zoning application (Form 0100, revised 10-25-2024) gives a primary structure three choices, at least 30 feet of frontage on a state road, a 30-foot-wide legal access to one, or other access, and then asks for the frontage distance or the legal width of the right-of-way. The same Grayson form puts the third question plainly:
When property lines are not evident, it is the responsibility of the property owner to identify property lines.
Grayson County, Zoning Application
None of the three is answered by driving out and finding a gravel road. Each has its own record and its own reader, and access is the first pass in the five-factor method for reading land.
The deed chain answers whether a right to cross exists
If the parcel does not front a public road itself, the question becomes whether a recorded instrument gives it a right to cross other land to reach one.
That instrument is an easement or a right-of-way granted in a deed or another recorded document, and it can sit several conveyances back in the chain. Finding it takes a title search; reading what it actually grants, to whom and for which land, is a title examination by a Virginia real estate attorney. How the two words differ is covered in easement versus right of way.
Counties lean on the same records. Wythe says that where a right-of-way does not comply with the necessary ordinances, it may need additional information or a copy of the deed before it approves a permit. Pulaski County goes further for new lots:
All access, either easement or right-of-way, shall be deeded and recorded with the Clerk of the Pulaski County Circuit Court. If access is not deeded, a subdivision relying on that access shall be denied by the UDO Administrator.
Pulaski County, Unified Development Ordinance
A road in daily use with nothing recorded behind it is a different situation, taken up in what happens when land has no recorded easement.
The plat draws the way, and a surveyor finds it on the ground
A recorded right to cross is only as useful as its location. The deed may describe it and the plat may draw it, but neither one stands on the dirt.
A recorded plat can show where a right-of-way is drawn and how wide it is, which is the width the Wythe and Grayson forms ask for. Placing those drawn lines on the ground takes a boundary survey by a land surveyor, and Grayson's form leaves identifying unclear property lines to the owner, not to the county.
How far the county record can stand in for a visit to the land is taken up in selling land you have never visited.
Reaching a road is not the same as reaching a public one
The last link is the road the right-of-way ends at. VDOT's access rules apply to highways that are part of the systems of state highways, and a private road is not one of them.
A route number is a clue, not a finding. VDOT describes secondary roads as local connector or county roads that "generally are numbered 600 and above", and its road-improvement page tells residents to check the number on intersection signs or contact the residency. VDOT's Carroll County map calls itself "AN INVENTORY OF STATE MAINTAINED ROADS", shows the network as of July 31, 2023, carries a private roads entry in its legend, and warns that its accuracy or completeness is not guaranteed. The residency for the county confirms a road's status today, and the full check is in how to know if a road is state maintained.
In Carroll County the record may say it outright. As the county's posted subdivision ordinance reads, a plat whose streets are not to be built to VDOT standards and taken into the state system, and every deed conveying a parcel on it, must state that the streets are below the standard VDOT accepts and that all maintenance and improvement costs are the responsibility of the landowners (or others) and may not come from public funds administered by VDOT or the county. Finding that statement in a chain tells you the street was not built for the state to take over.
What each outcome of a record check means for the parcel
Put the three records together and a parcel lands in one of four places.
- Frontage on a state-maintained road. The land meets the public road itself, and where a driveway may go is VDOT's separate entrance question.
- A recorded right-of-way to a public road. Access rests on the instrument's terms and width, and a county may measure that width against its own form, as Grayson's 30-foot legal access line does.
- A way in use with nothing recorded. The question becomes whether a right arose some other way, which is an attorney's analysis rather than a record search.
- No frontage and no right of any kind. The parcel is landlocked until a right is granted or established.
Checking the recorded access to a parcel you are considering?
With the county, the parcel number and the road you would come in on, Lowell can list which records to pull and which office settles each part. No cost, no obligation.
Got it. Thank you.
We'll be in touch shortly with an honest read.
Questions this raises
Does a VDOT entrance permit prove a parcel has legal access?
No. Under VDOT's Land Use Permit Regulations a permit grants only the rights set out in it and only to the extent of VDOT's own rights in the right-of-way, and the permit holder remains responsible for getting permission from anyone else with an interest in the property. A permit shows VDOT approved an entrance at a location; any right to reach that entrance across other land has to come from a recorded instrument or another legal basis that an attorney confirms.
How wide does a recorded right-of-way need to be?
It depends on the county and on what the land is being used for. Grayson County's zoning application asks, for a primary structure, whether a parcel has a 30-foot-wide legal access to a state road, and Wythe County asks for the width of a right-of-way and may want the deed if it does not comply with the county's ordinances. An attorney reads the width a recorded instrument grants, a surveyor locates it, and the county office says whether it is enough.
Who has to find the property lines on a Grayson County zoning application?
The owner. Grayson's zoning application says that when property lines are not evident, it is the property owner's responsibility to identify them. Locating a boundary, and where a right-of-way runs inside it, is a land surveyor's work, and the county form does not do that work for the applicant.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- Building Permit Requirements (state road frontage, right-of-way width, the deed) Wythe County, Virginia
- Zoning Application, Form 0100, revised 10-25-2024 (frontage, legal access, property lines) Grayson County, Virginia
- Unified Development Ordinance, July 2025 (access deeded and recorded) Pulaski County, Virginia
- 24VAC30-73-30, the Access Management Regulations apply to the systems of state highways Virginia Department of Transportation
- Our system: highways (secondary roads generally numbered 600 and above) Virginia Department of Transportation
- Roads that qualify for improvement (check the route number or contact the residency) Virginia Department of Transportation
- Carroll County map: an inventory of state maintained roads, as of July 31, 2023 Virginia Department of Transportation
- Subdivision Ordinance, posted copy with amendments through April 14, 2014 (private street plat and deed statements) Carroll County, Virginia
- 24VAC30-151-20, what a land use permit grants Virginia Department of Transportation