Chapter Seven - Easements, Restrictions and Rights of Adjoining Owners

Question 1

EASEMENTS

Answer 1

• Encubrances that affect the physical condition or use of property.

Question 2

Easement Appurtenant

Answer 2

• Easment Appurtenant: One party benefits and one party burdened.
• Servient Premises: tract which is burdened by the easement.
• Dominant Premises: tract which benefits.

Question 3

Easement in Gross

Answer 3

• Easement in Gross: An easement that does not benefit a particular parcel.

Question 4

Affirmative Easements

Answer 4

• A easement in which the owner of the dominant premises can use the servient premises.

Question 5

Negative Easements

Answer 5

• An easement in which the owner of the servient premises is prohibited from doing something that would otherwise be lawful.

Question 6

Creating Easements

Answer 6

• Express Grant or Reservation
• Implied Grant or Reservation
• Prescription
• Condemnation
• Neccessity
• Dedication

Question 7

Express Grant or Reservation

Answer 7

• Easement created by deed or written agreement.
• Reservation is selling land and reserving in the deed an easement in the portion retained.

Question 8

Implied Grant or Reservation

Answer 8

• An easement created because a court would consider that the owner intended to create one.
• Must be obvious and prior use must have been continuous.

Question 9

Prescrption

(Adverse Possession)

Answer 9

• A person who makes use of another person’s land for 30-60 years.
• Use must be adverse (without owner’s consent).
• Use must be continuous.
• Use must be uninterrupted.
• Use must be visible.
• Use must be open.
• Use must be notorius.

Question 10

Condemnation

Question 11

Neccessity

Answer 11

• With landlocked land, a right of way by neccessity is created by implied grant over the remaining land of the seller.
• No other conditions are required.

Question 12

Termination of an Easement

Answer 12

• Express Release
• Merger
• Abandonment: non-use is insufficient evidence of intent to abandon.
• By Terms of Original Easement.
• Termination of Purpose.

Question 13

RESTRICTIONS

Public Restrictions

Answer 13

• PEET: Police, Eminent Domain, Eschete, Taxes

Question 14

Private Restrictions

Deed Restrictions

Answer 14

• Imposed by developers like in Zinnia.
• Imposed by private landowners on the deed during conveyance.

Question 15

RIGHTS OF ADJOINING OWNERS

Encroachments

Lateral and Subject Support; Subsidence

Party Walls

Answer 15

• Lateral and Subject Support: Each owner has the right to have his land supported in its natural condition by the land of his neighbor.
• Subsidence: lowering of the land surface elevation.