LIGHT RIGHTS
Easements of light and view


You wake up in the morning, always looking forward to watching the sun rise from your window. Over time you take this for granted, barely appreciating the subdued light coming through the blinds. But just wait until your next door neighbor builds his new three story townhouse and blocks your entire view altogether.

Did you have the habit of stepping out onto your porch or balcony in order to stretch your limbs? Then suddenly, you find yourself being watched by your neighbor who has conveniently added a new window in the wall separating your properties?

Are you now feeling deprived of something you always expected and wanted to be where it always had been? Don’t fret yet. You might just have a recourse in law to protect these easements.

Easements

In fine, an easement is an encumbrance imposed on an immovable, such as real property, for the benefit of another immovable belonging to a different owner. The immovable in whose favor the easement is established is called the dominant estate and the one subject to the same, the servient estate (Art. 613, New Civil Code). If it sounds a bit perverted, rest assured it is all legal. = )

A positive easement imposes an obligation on the owner of the servient estate to allow something to be done or of doing it himself while a negative easement prohibits the servient owner from something he could lawfully do if not for the easement (Art. 616). It sounds dirtier than what it really is. Everything to be done (or not done) here is with respect to the property and not any of the owners.

Easements of Light and View

With respect to your right to a view of your choosing, this has been classified by the Supreme Court as a “negative” easement. CID vs. JAVIER, et al. [G.R. No. L-14116. June 30, 1960.] And you can invoke this easement only by means of a formal act. This means that you have to forbid the servient owner, by means of an instrument acknowledged before the notary public, from executing an act which would be lawful if not for the easement (Art. 621).

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