An outbuilding is a structure that is separate and detached from the main dwelling on a piece of land. An outbuilding may take various forms including barns, garages, or sheds, among others. Outbuildings can serve a functional role as identifiers for the boundaries of curtilage, which is the extent of a yard surrounding a home, on real property. The Supreme Court illustrated three ways in which outbuildings can be used to draw curtilage boundaries: establishing a boundary at an arbitrary distance beyond the outermost outbuilding, establishing a “reasonable zone” beyond the furthest outbuilding, or using that most distant outbuilding as its outer boundary. United States v. Williams, 581 F.2d 451, 454 (5th Cir. 1978). California statutes such as the CA Fish & Game Code § 3004 also use outbuildings as the outer boundary for a piece of property within 150 feet of which no hunter besides the property owner, unless with the property owner’s consent, can hunt or discharge a firearm while hunting.
[Last updated in July of 2020 by the Wex Definitions Team]