Also known as: servient tenants · servient owner
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
The owner of land subject to an easement or other servitude. The servient tenant must permit the dominant tenant to exercise the rights conferred by the servitude and bears the corresponding burdens of repair and maintenance allocated by the creating instrument or by default rules.
Pipeline Company holds an easement across Blackacre owned by Owner. Owner later grants Road Company an easement to build a road that crosses the same strip. When heavy rains damage the road surface and the pipeline, Road Company refuses to contribute to repairs. Owner sues both companies. The court holds that Road Company, as a joint user, must share reasonable repair costs with Pipeline Company because both servitudes use the same portion of the servient estate.
The United States granted a railroad an easement across a parcel later patented to the Brandt Trust. After the railroad abandoned the line, the United States claimed fee title. The Trust sued to quiet title. The court ruled that the original grant conveyed only an easement, so the Trust, as current servient tenant, holds the underlying fee free of the abandoned easement.
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A county board approved a hog confinement operation on land subject to a recorded conservation easement held by a neighboring trust. The trust sued the board and the new owner. The court held that the servient tenant could not expand the use beyond the easement's terms and that the board's approval did not override the preexisting servitude.
The servient tenant has no affirmative duty to repair or maintain the servient estate or the improvements used by the easement unless the creating instrument or joint-use rules impose contribution obligations. The dominant tenant must repair portions under its control to avoid unreasonable interference or third-party liability.
Yes. A properly created and recorded easement runs with the servient land and binds subsequent owners who take with notice. The new owner steps into the shoes of the original servient tenant and must honor the use rights granted to the dominant tenant.
No. An express easement remains in force according to its terms even if the servient owner offers alternative access or the dominant estate no longer needs the original route. Relocation or termination requires mutual consent or a recognized extinguishment doctrine such as abandonment or estoppel.
When the servient tenant and the easement holder both use the same improvement, each must contribute to reasonable repair and maintenance costs in proportion to their use. Separate easement holders sharing the same portion of the servient estate likewise share repair expenses.
…§ 1.2(1) (1998). "Unlike most possessory estates, easements ... may be unilaterally terminated by abandonment, leaving the servient owner with a possessory estate unencumbered by the servitude." Id. , § 1.2, Comment d ; id. , § 7.4, Comments a, f . In other words, if the beneficiary of the easement abandons it, the…