Source: https://philippinecivillaw.wordpress.com/category/property-ownership-its-modifications/07-easements-of-servitudes/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 23:02:16+00:00

Document:
Art. 613. An easement or servitude is an encumbrance imposed upon an immovable for the benefit of another immovable belonging to a different owner.
Art. 615. Easements may be continuous or discontinuous, apparent or nonapparent.
Continuous easements are those the use of which is or may be incessant, without the intervention of any act of man.
Discontinuous easements are those which are used at intervals and depend upon the acts of man.
Apparent easements are those which are made known and are continually kept in view by external signs that reveal the use and enjoyment of the same.
Art. 616. Easements are also positive or negative.
Art. 618. Easements are indivisible. If the servient estate is divided between two or more persons, the easement is not modified, and each of them must bear it on the part which corresponds to him.
Art. 627. The owner of the dominant estate may make, at his own expense, on the servient state any works necessary for the use and preservation of the servitude, but without altering it or rendering it more burdensome.
Art. 628. Should there be several dominant estates, the owners of all of them shall be obliged to contribute to the expenses referred to in the preceding article, in proportion to the benefits which each may derive from the work. Any one who does not wish to contribute may exempt himself by renouncing the easement for the benefit of the others.
Art. 629. The owner of the servient estate cannot impair, in any manner whatsoever, the use of the servitude.
Art. 636. Easements established by law in the interest of private persons or for private use shall be governed by the provisions of this Title, without prejudice to the provisions of general or local laws and ordinances for the general welfare.
Art. 637. Lower estates are obliged to receive the waters which naturally and without the intervention of man descend from the higher estates, as well as the stones or earth which they carry with them.
Art. 638. The banks of rivers and streams, even in case they are of private ownership, are subject throughout their entire length and within a zone of three meters along their margins, to the easement of public use in the general interest of navigation, floatage, fishing and salvage.
Estates adjoining the banks of navigable or floatable rivers are, furthermore, subject to the easement of towpath for the exclusive service of river navigation and floatage.
Art. 649. The owner, or any person who by virtue of a real right may cultivate or use any immovable, which is surrounded by other immovables pertaining to other persons and without adequate outlet to a public highway, is entitled to demand a right of way through the neighboring estates, after payment of the proper indemnity.
In case the right of way is limited to the necessary passage for the cultivation of the estate surrounded by others and for the gathering of its crops through the servient estate without a permanent way, the indemnity shall consist in the payment of the damage caused by such encumbrance.
Art. 652. Whenever a piece of land acquired by sale, exchange or partition, is surrounded by other estates of the vendor, exchanger, or co-owner, he shall be obliged to grant a right of way without indemnity.
Art. 655. If the right of way granted to a surrounded estate ceases to be necessary because its owner has joined it to another abutting on a public road, the owner of the servient estate may demand that the easement be extinguished, returning what he may have received by way of indemnity. The interest on the indemnity shall be deemed to be in payment of rent for the use of the easement.
The same rule shall be applied in case a new road is opened giving access to the isolated estate.
Art. 657. Easements of the right of way for the passage of livestock known as animal path, animal trail or any other, and those for watering places, resting places and animal folds, shall be governed by the ordinances and regulations relating thereto, and, in the absence thereof, by the usages and customs of the place.
Without prejudice to rights legally acquired, the animal path shall not exceed in any case the width of 75 meters, and the animal trail that of 37 meters and 50 centimeters.
(7) Whenever lands inclosed by fences or live hedges adjoin others which are not inclosed.
Art. 661. Ditches or drains opened between two estates are also presumed as common to both, if there is no title or sign showing the contrary.
Art. 662. The cost of repairs and construction of party walls and the maintenance of fences, live hedges, ditches, and drains owned in common, shall be borne by all the owners of the lands or tenements having the party wall in their favor, in proportion to the right of each.
Art. 664. Every owner may increase the height of the party wall, doing at his own expense and paying for any damage which may be caused by the work, even though such damage be temporary.
The expenses of maintaining the wall in the part newly raised or deepened at its foundation shall also be paid for by him; and, in addition, the indemnity for the increased expenses which may be necessary for the preservation of the party wall by reason of the greater height or depth which has been given it.
Art. 669. When the distances in Article 670 are not observed, the owner of a wall which is not party wall, adjoining a tenement or piece of land belonging to another, can make in it openings to admit light at the height of the ceiling joints or immediately under the ceiling, and of the size of thirty centimeters square, and, in every case, with an iron grating imbedded in the wall and with a wire screen.
Nevertheless, the owner of the tenement or property adjoining the wall in which the openings are made can close them should he acquire part-ownership thereof, if there be no stipulation to the contrary.
Art. 670. No windows, apertures, balconies, or other similar projections which afford a direct view upon or towards an adjoining land or tenement can be made, without leaving a distance of two meters between the wall in which they are made and such contiguous property.
Neither can side or oblique views upon or towards such conterminous property be had, unless there be a distance of sixty centimeters.
Art. 678. No person shall build any aqueduct, well, sewer, furnace, forge, chimney, stable, depository of corrosive substances, machinery, or factory which by reason of its nature or products is dangerous or noxious, without observing the distances prescribed by the regulations and customs of the place, and without making the necessary protective works, subject, in regard to the manner thereof, to the conditions prescribed by such regulations. These prohibitions cannot be altered or renounced by stipulation on the part of the adjoining proprietors.
Art. 679. No trees shall be planted near a tenement or piece of land belonging to another except at the distance authorized by the ordinances or customs of the place, and, in the absence thereof, at a distance of at least two meters from the dividing line of the estates if tall trees are planted and at a distance of at least fifty centimeters if shrubs or small trees are planted.
Every landowner shall have the right to demand that trees hereafter planted at a shorter distance from his land or tenement be uprooted.
Art. 682. Every building or piece of land is subject to the easement which prohibits the proprietor or possessor from committing nuisance through noise, jarring, offensive odor, smoke, heat, dust, water, glare and other causes.
Art. 683. Subject to zoning, health, police and other laws and regulations, factories and shops may be maintained provided the least possible annoyance is caused to the neighborhood.
Sec. 684. No proprietor shall make such excavations upon his land as to deprive any adjacent land or building of sufficient lateral or subjacent support.
Art. 685. Any stipulation or testamentary provision allowing excavations that cause danger to an adjacent land or building shall be void.
Art. 686. The legal easement of lateral and subjacent support is not only for buildings standing at the time the excavations are made but also for constructions that may be erected.
Art. 687. Any proprietor intending to make any excavation contemplated in the three preceding articles shall notify all owners of adjacent lands.
Art. 691. In order to impose an easement on an undivided tenement, or piece of land, the consent of all the co-owners shall be required.
The consent given by some only, must be held in abeyance until the last one of all the co-owners shall have expressed his conformity.

References: Art. 615

Art. 616

Art. 618

Art. 627

Art. 628

Art. 629

Art. 636

Art. 637

Art. 638

Art. 649

Art. 652

Art. 655

Art. 657

Art. 661

Art. 662

Art. 664

Art. 669

Art. 670

Art. 678

Art. 679

Art. 682

Art. 683

Art. 685

Art. 686

Art. 687

Art. 691