A servitude is a right to the limited use of a piece of land unaccompanied cither by ownership or by possession thereof.
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Kinds of Servitude:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Servitude may be cither private or public. The former is vested in a determinate individual or individuals, e.g., a right to way, of light or support; while the latter is vested in the public at large or in some class of indeterminate individuals, e.g., the right of the public to a highway over private land or to navigate a river belonging to a private individual.
Servitudes may also be classified as appurtenant or in gross. The former besides being an encumbrance of one piece of land is also accessory to another piece. It is a right of using another’s land for the benefit of one’s own land.
Thus, right to light, right of support for a building and right to way from my house to the high road across my neighbour’s field are examples or servitudes-appurtenant.
A servitude-in-gross is not attached or accessory to any dominant tenement at all. Private rights of fishing, pasturage or mining, and a public right of way or navigation furnish examples of this type of servitude.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Professor Paton further divides servitudes into real servitudes and personal servitudes. The former inhere in a person only as owner of a particular piece of property: the latter inhere in a particular person as such and not merely in a person as the owner of certain land, e.g., such rights of enjoyment being exercisable by a given individual as such over the property of another.
In the former, if Jones, who is the owner of Blacker and has the power to cross Greenacres, sells Black- acre to Robinson, Jones loses the power to cross Greenacres and Robinson acquires it. Professor Paton gives the examples of the latter usufruct, uses and habitation, which are based on post-classical writing in Roman law.
Servitudes may also be classified as positive or negative; continuous or discontinuous; rural or urban; and apparent or non-apparent.