Servitude in civil law

A servitude is a qualified beneficial interest severed or fragmented from the ownership of an inferior property (servient estate) and attached to a superior property (dominant estate) or to some person (personal beneficiary) other than the owner.^[1] At civil law, ownership (dominium) (e.g. of land) is the only full real right whereas a servitude is a subordinate real right on par with wayleaves, real burdens (i.e. real covenants), security interests, and reservations. There are two types:^[2] predial, attaching to property, and personal, attaching to a person.

A servitude cannot impose the performance of a positive duty on the owner of the burdened property but only duties either to refrain from exercising certain rights to which an owner could be otherwise entitled (negative servitude) or to suffer certain things to be done to his property which an owner otherwise could be entitled to forbid or resist (positive servitude). Servitudes arise from express agreement, adverse possession, or as a matter of law.