| jur. |
common; right of way (Alexander Matytsin); servitude (in Anglo-American property law, a device that ties rights and obligations to ownership or possession of land so that they run with the land to successive owners and occupiers. In contemporary property law, servitudes allow people to create stable long-term arrangements for a wide variety of purposes, including shared land uses; maintaining the character of a residential neighbourhood, commercial development, or historic property; and financing infrastructure and common facilities. The owner of property burdened by a servitude cannot unilaterally terminate the servitude or transfer the property free from the servitude without the consent of all the beneficiaries. Thus, whether or not they expressly agree to its terms, subsequent owners and occupiers are bound to follow the servitude. Land-use arrangements implemented by servitudes range from simple driveway easements (easement) and covenants prohibiting nonresidential use of subdivision lots to complex declarations that provide for the physical and governmental infrastructure for condominiums (condominium), planned developments, or private towns. In the United States there are three basic types of servitudes: easements, covenants, and profits. Easements (easement) allow the right to enter and use, for a specified purpose, land that is owned by another (e.g., the right to install and maintain an electric power line over someone else's land). Covenants obligate a landowner to do something for, or give a landowner the right to receive something from, someone else. Examples of covenants are agreements between owners of a parcel of land that they will pay assessments to a homeowner's association and agreements with an owner of a business on a parcel of land that another parcel of land in the area will not be used by a competing business. Profits give someone the right to enter and remove natural resources (e.g., sand and gravel) from the land of another. Servitudes usually arise out of agreements between owners and users but may also be created by prescription (i.e., by open use of someone else's property for a specified period of time) or by eminent domain (i.e., government appropriation of private property for public use). Agreements to create servitudes are subject to a statutory requirement (Statute of Frauds), which requires that they be created by a written instrument. Britannica); way leave (Alexander Matytsin); way-leave (Alexander Matytsin); servitude |
