The warring neighbors

Spouses Rudy and Cris once owned five contiguous parcels of land. Two of these properties were located in front of their three other properties. These two front properties provided the other properties sole access to the national highway.

Over time, the spouses annotated on the tiles of front properties an easement of right of way in favor of the back properties.

Rudy and Chris later obtained a loan from a bank and mortgaged the front properties. When they failed to pay their loan, the bank foreclosed and eventually acquired the front properties.

Later on, spouses Mer and Ange purchased the front properties from the bank. A new title was issued in their favor which bore the same annotations. However, they refused to recognize the annotated right of way, enclosing the properties to prevent the former owners from accessing the national highway through the front properties.

Q: What is an easement?

A: It is an encumbrance on a property for the benefit of another property owned by another. It involves a grant to use a portion or aspect of the property, without relinquishing ownership or possession over it.

The property on which the easement is imposed, and which will be used by the other, is called the servient estate. The property to which the use is granted is the dominant estate.

Q: What is an easement of right of way?

A: It is when a portion of the servient estate is dedicated to the passage of the dominant estate’s owner. It is thus a discontinuous easement, used only in intervals and depending on whether a person needs to pass through another person’s property.

Q: Is an easement of right of way continuous or discontinuous one?

A: Easements are either continuous or discontinuous according to the manner they are exercised, not according to the presence of apparent signs or physical indications of the existence of such easements.

Thus, easement is continuous if its use is, or may be, incessant without the intervention of any act of man, like the easement of drainage; and it is discontinuous if it is used at intervals and depends on the act of man, like the easement of right of way.

The easement of right of way is considered discontinuous because it is exercised only if a person passes or sets foot on somebody else’s land. As a discontinuous easement, an easement of right of way is acquired only by title.

Q: Was an easement of right of constituted on the front lots?

A: Yes. An easement of right of way was not constituted when Rudy and Cris annotated it on their titles.

However, when the front properties were transferred to the bank, the apparent signs of the easement—the path and the annotations—served as a title over the easement.

The title would not have been conferred if the contrary were so provided in the deed of transfer, or if the path and annotations were removed before the deed of transfer was executed. Here, there is no showing that the bank stipulated against the easement. Thus, it is bound to respect the easement.

Perforce, the same goes for spouses Mer and Ange. They were aware of the easement as it was annotated on the bank’s titles and on the titles issued to them. They are thus presumed to have been informed that petitioners use a portion of the front properties to access the national highway.

Yet, despite this knowledge, they still purchased the properties, with no showing that they made any manifest objection to it at the time of transfer Thus, a valid easement of right of way was constituted on the front properties now owned by respondents.

Q: What is the lesson of the story?

A: When one person who owns two properties establishes an apparent sign of an easement between them, this gives rise to a title over an easement when either of the properties is transferred to another person.

The exception is if the contrary is provided in the deed of transfer, or if before the deed is executed, the apparent sign is removed. (Source: Sps. Fernandez vs. Spouses Delfin, G.R. No. 227917, March 17, 2021, Third Division, SAJ, Leonen)

The author is Dean of College of Law at Lyceum of the Philippines University, former president of the Philippine Association of Law Schools, and founder of Mawis Law Office