Understanding Easements in Land Law

📋 Course Outline

1. Definition of Easements
2. Characteristics of Easements
3. Creation of Easements
4. Easements in Gross
5. Dominant and Servient Land
6. Accommodating the Land
7. Implied and Presumed Grants
8. Easements of Necessity and Intent
9. Legal and Equitable Easements
10. Registration and Overriding Interests
11. Extinction and Abandonment

📖 1. Definition of Easements

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

Easement: An easement is a proprietary right that grants a landowner the limited use or enjoyment of another person's land. It can take the form of either a positive easement, which allows the holder to do something on the servient land, or a negative easement, which restricts the servient landowner from doing certain activities to benefit the dominant land. As a proprietary right, an easement is attached to the land and can be transferred or inherited, distinguishing it from mere personal rights or licences.

Dominant Tenement: The parcel of land that benefits from the easement. It is the land over which the easement is exercised and which enjoys the limited use or restriction granted by the easement. The dominant tenement must be in separate occupation from the servient tenement and is the land that gains the benefit of the easement.