The essential qualities of an easement generally are:

  2023 MLD 115

The essential qualities of an easement generally are:

(1) it is incorporeal;

(2) it is imposed on corporeal property and not on the owner of it

(3) it confers no right of share in the profits from such property;

(4) it is imposed for the benefit of corporeal property;

(5) it involves two distinct tenements, the one which enjoys the easement, that is, to which the easement belongs or to which it is attached, called the ‘dominant tenement’ or ‘dominant estate’ and the other on which the easement rests or is imposed, called ‘the servient tenement’ or ‘servient estate’.

Moreover, the following conditions must be fulfilled for the acquisition of a right of easement by prescription:

(i) The right claimed must not be uncertain.

(ii) The right claimed must have been enjoyed.

(iii) It must have been enjoyed (a) peaceably, (b) openly, (c) as of right, (d) as an easement, (e) without interruption, (f) for twenty years or sixty years, if the right is claimed against Government.

Out of the last six sub-conditions, (b) and (c) are not necessary in the case of easement of light and air or support. With this exception, all the conditions and sub-conditions must be fulfilled before the right of easement is acquired.

An easement is a right which the owner or occupier of certain land possesses, as such, for the beneficial enjoyment of that land, to do and continue to do something, or to prevent and continue to present something being done, in or upon, or in respect of, certain other land not his own. The land for the beneficial enjoyment of which the rights exists is called the dominant heritage, and the owner or occupier thereof the dominant owner; the land, on which the liability is imposed, is called the servient heritage, and the owner or occupier thereof the servient owner.