Easements and Servitudes: Property Rights for Light, Way, Water, Walls

Easements and Servitudes

Easements: An easement is a property right that benefits one property at the expense of another.

Types of Easements

• Legal
• Voluntary
• Continuous
• Discontinuous
• Apparent
• Not apparent
• Positive
• Negative

Acquisition Modes

You purchase modes: continuous with title (prescription), continuous without title, and discontinuous (with title).

Rights and Obligations

Rights and obligations: The dominant estate must perform conservation works so as not to make the servitude unduly burdensome. The servient estate must preserve the servitude and must not diminish it, although costs and obligations can vary depending on place and form.

Termination of Easements

Causes of termination include:

• Unity of ownership: when the servient and dominant estates become the same person.
• Non-use for 20 years or extinction by prescription.
• When the servient land is in such disrepair that the easement cannot be used.
• Temporal termination or renunciation of the easement by the dominant estate by agreement.

Easement of Light and View

Light and view easements: These are typically apparent and continuous servitudes allowing openings that give light or views.

• Owners have rights to open holes or openings in a wall for light and view when the servitude is apparent and continuous.
• No owner may build openings into an adjoining non-common wall without the adjoining owner's consent.
• As a practical limit, small openings (for example up to 30 × 30 cm) with protective grilles may be permitted, provided they do not cause serious damage or nuisance.
• Windows or balconies are not permitted if they are within 2 m above the neighbor's land or obliquely within 60 cm, except where separated by public roads.
• When there is a title of view (servitude of view), the servient estate may be restricted in building: it cannot place constructions that violate the height or setback limitations (for example, building less than 3 m where that would impair the servitude).

Easement of Way

Easement of way: Rights of passage (ways) commonly affect farms and other properties. They may require compensation and can be discontinuous or apparent/not apparent.

• Where possible, the route chosen should be the least harmful, with the minimum necessary distance and width required for the easement.
• If ownership changes such that the servitude no longer serves its original purpose, the particular rights may vanish or be subject to readjustment and compensation.
• There are easements for temporary occupation such as scaffolding, allowing the occupation or passage over a servient property with appropriate compensation.

Water Easements

Water easements: Natural water courses and rights concerning water between properties are subject to servitude rules:

• Natural water running across farms affects rights and burdens concerning earth and stones and other works.
• No works may be carried out on an affected tract that aggravate the servitude against the dominant estate.
• Aqueduct easements: receiving water from other properties may be permitted, typically with compensation; such aqueducts should not be used for purely private building interests contrary to the servitude.
• Drainage servitudes cover rules about pouring water onto another's land or into public drains.

Party Walls and Boundaries

Party walls: Party walls and dividing structures (walls, fences, hedges) that separate adjoining properties are commonly treated as shared or divisive elements.

Party walls are presumed when they divide adjoining properties. If there is no express title, the wall should function as a divisive element for adjoining properties (dividing walls of corrals, gardens, fences, hedges that separate rural estates).

Shared Works and Obligations

• Sharecropping or shared walls oppose works that place loads or protruding elements on the opposite side; this includes windows, buttresses, or protruding stones that step into the adjacent property.
• Costs for maintenance and repair of party walls are generally borne by both owners.
• One may not demolish a party wall (quit the mediatrix) unless doing so would not cause a building to collapse or endanger the other owner.
• If a building is repaired, the mediator (shared owner) can contribute to costs and may claim compensation; maintenance costs run to the parties according to agreement or legal rules.
• When a shared wall is widened into the respective grounds, costs are commonly split half and half; where a floor or beam is yielded, shared construction typically occupies half the beam thickness without preventing common usage, subject to the consent of the owners.

Practical Notes

Where legal titles exist (servitudes with title), rules are stricter and the servient estate has reduced freedom to alter structures that would impair the easement. Compensation mechanisms and prescription rules apply in many jurisdictions.

Note: This document corrects spelling, grammar, and capitalization while preserving the original content and intent concerning easements, their types, acquisition modes, rights and obligations, specific servitudes (light and view, way, water), and party wall provisions.