An easement is often defined as a right enjoyed by the owner of one parcel of land to carry out some limited activity other activity on another person’s parcel of land. more fully, and easement may be defined as a right annexed to land to utilise our the land of different ownership in a particular manner not involving the taking of any part of the produce of land or any part of its oil or to prevent the owner of the other land from utilising and in particular manner.
Easements fall into two basic groups. There are positive easements and the easements. Positive easements give rights of entry onto a another person’s land to enable something to be done on the land. Some a commonplace, such as rights of way or rights to discharge water. Others are more unusual, such as rights to occupy a few in a church, to use a kitchen on another’s land to wash and dry clothes, to use a toilet on another’s land, to clean fish on another’s land or other miscellaneous types of easements.
It is generally accepted that easements have for essential requirements. As endorsed by the English Court of Appeal in Re Ellenborough Park [1956] Ch 131 at 40. these elements include that there must be a dominant and a servient tenement, the easement must accommodate the dominant tenement, the same person must not owned and occupied the dominant and servient tenements, the right claimed as an easement must be capable of forming the subject matter of a grant. these will principles can be applied to identify if an easement is in existence over a piece of land. It is important to understand whether or not an easement exists, because an easement is a legally enforceable right of way through a piece of land.
