Chapter Summary
A praedial servitude (often called simply ‘servitude’) was a right held by the owner of one area of land (the dominant property) to make some specified use of neighbouring land or in some specific way to restrict the use of that neighbouring land (the servient property).
Both the benefit and the burden of the servitude transmitted to new owners of these properties. For this reason, the benefit taken had to relate to the property, and to the owner only in the capacity of owner, rather than being a personal benefit to the dominant owner. The most common form of praedial servitude was a right of way over the servient property, for access to the dominant property, but there were other types. The modern Scots law of servitudes has been very much influenced by the Roman law, and is one of the most Roman parts of Scots law.Further Reading
J.2.3
D.8.1-6; 43.19-23
C.3.34
W W Buckland, A Text-Book of Roman Law from Augustus to Justinian 3rd edn, revd P Stein (Cambridge University Press 1963) 258-67
H Hausmaninger and R Gamauf, A Casebook on Roman Property Law (G A Sheets trans, Oxford University Press 2012) 244-55
E Metzger ed, A Companion to Justinian’s Institutes (Duckworth 1998) 67-70
J A C Thomas, Textbook of Roman Law (North-Holland 1976) 195-202
A Watson, The Law of Property in the Later Roman Republic (Oxford University Press 1968) chapter 8