S14.21.3 Notice of Converted Servitude (S80)

From the Appointed Day there will be a clear distinction between servitudes and real burdens.

On the Appointed Day it shall cease to be competent to create a negative servitude. Negative servitudes are not common and are thought to be confined to restrictions on building, in particular for the protection of light or prospect. Such obligations have more typically been imposed as real burdens and from the Appointed Day it will only be possible to create negative real burdens (registered against both the benefited and burdened properties under the new regime).

Existing negative servitudes shall cease to exist as such and, in terms of S80(1), will automatically become a negative real burden (a ‘converted servitude’). In terms of S80(2) and (3) these converted servitudes will be extinguished 10 years after the Appointed Day unless they have been registered or noted against the burdened property before the Appointed Day, or, if this is not the case, by a notice registered between the Appointed Day and 2014. Any negative servitude which is already entered in the burdens section of a title sheet, or has appeared in the progress of title for the burdened property in the Sasine Register, before the Appointed Day will be preserved. Where this is not the case it will be necessary for the owner of the benefited property to register a notice in terms of S80(4) in order for the burden to survive beyond 2014.

In terms of S80(6) a notice of a converted servitude will require to be registered against both the burdened and the benefited property.

(Superseded - 10 year period expired)