Understanding Servitude in Property Law

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Meaning of servitude in legal literature Servitudes provide the legal basis of planning surrounding property and they help to determine how property is to be physically laid out, regulated and operated. This can be in both a residential or commercial setting. A servitude is a limited real right where a load is placed on immovable property. It is a limited real right due to the fact that servitudes are a real rights extracted from the full dominium of the owner and are exercised by another person which makes the content of the servitude to be the entitlements the owner has given to the other person. This means that the entitlements that the owner has over the land are limited in favour of either another person or the owner of another property . There are two classifications of servitudes, either personal or praedial.. A personal servitude attaches itself to the holder in their personal capacity. They are therefore entitled, as the holder of …show more content…

It is mostly applicable to praedial servitudes but personal servitudes can also be created this way. The third way to create servitudes is through statutes for example servitudes can also be created through acquisitive prescription. This is stipulated in section 6 of the Prescription Ac where if a person has been in possession of a servitude for a period of 30 years openly in a manner which indicated that they were entitled to do so and as though he were entitled to do so, exercised the rights and powers which a person who has a right to such servitude is entitled to exercise, for an uninterrupted period of thirty years or, in the case of a praedial servitude, for a period which, together with any periods for which such rights and powers were so exercised by his predecessors in title, constitutes an uninterrupted period of thirty

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