Right of way and easements: what the law says
An easement is a burden on one property for the benefit of another. Some come from a contract between neighbours. Others come from the law itself, and the right to them exists whether or not your title mentions them. This is the second kind, with each distance and the article it comes from.
Two kinds of easement
The Civil Code defines an easement as “an encumbrance imposed upon an immovable for the benefit of another immovable belonging to a different owner” (Article 613). The land that carries the burden is the servient estate, and the land that benefits is the dominant estate. Article 619 sorts them in two: legal easements, set by law, and voluntary ones, set by the owners.
Legal easements serve either the public, like the strip along a riverbank, or a private neighbour, like a right of way to a lot with no road (Article 634). The rest of this page is about those.
Right of way to a lot with no road
A lot boxed in by other people's land can demand a way out to a public highway through a neighbour's lot. Article 649 sets the conditions, and all of them have to hold.
| Condition | What the Code says |
|---|---|
| Surrounded | The lot is surrounded by land belonging to other people (Article 649). |
| No adequate outlet | It has no adequate outlet to a public highway (Article 649). |
| Payment | The owner of the enclosed lot pays the neighbour the proper indemnity: the value of the land taken and the damage caused for a permanent passage, or the damage alone for a passage used only to farm and harvest (Article 649). |
| Not self-inflicted | The easement is not compulsory if the lot was cut off by its owner's own acts (Article 649). |
| Where it runs | At the point least prejudicial to the neighbour, and, as far as that allows, where the way to the highway is shortest (Article 650). |
How wide
The Code gives no figure. The width is “that which is sufficient for the needs of the dominant estate, and may accordingly be changed from time to time” (Article 651). The owners agree the width, or a court fixes it if they cannot. A change is not automatic, and the Code does not say who pays for a wider way; the payment rule in Article 649 is the natural reading, but that is a question for a lawyer.
Other rules that come up
- Land bought out of a larger lot. If you bought a piece, took it in a swap or received it in a partition, and it is surrounded by the other party's remaining land, that party must give a right of way without payment (Article 652). A donation is different: the person who received the land pays the donor for the way. If it is the seller's remaining land that ends up cut off, the seller may demand a way after paying, while a donor owes nothing (Article 653).
- Repairs and taxes. On a permanent right of way, the owner who uses it makes the repairs and pays the neighbour a proportionate share of the taxes (Article 654).
- When it ends. If the enclosed lot is joined to land on a public road, or a new road reaches it, the neighbour can ask for the easement to end and return the payment, provided the road substantially meets the lot's needs. The interest earned on the payment counts as rent for the years of use, so it is not returned (Article 655).
- Passage for building work. If carrying materials across a neighbour's land or putting scaffolding on it is indispensable to build or repair, the neighbour must allow it after being paid for the damage (Article 656).
“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.”
Distances from the boundary
These govern where windows, roofs and trees may go. The window rules are the easement of light and view, and the building code makes its own 2 m setback for a house subject to them.
| Rule | Figure | Source and condition |
|---|---|---|
| Wall with windows or a balcony looking onto the next lot | 2.00 m | Civil Code Article 670, measured from the outer line of the wall, or of the balcony if it projects (Article 671). A window kept too close for years earns no right to stay: the Code says non-observance does not give rise to prescription |
| Side or oblique view onto the next lot | 0.60 m | Civil Code Article 670, measured from the dividing line (Article 671) |
| Openings allowed in a wall closer than that | 30 cm square | Civil Code Article 669: only in a wall that is not a party wall, at the ceiling joists or just under the ceiling, with an iron grating imbedded in the wall and a wire screen. The neighbour may still close them by acquiring part of the wall, or block them by building, unless an easement of light has been acquired |
| When the window distances do not apply | 3.00 m | Civil Code Article 672: buildings separated by a public way or alley at least this wide, subject to special regulations and local ordinances |
| Building near a view the neighbour has a right to | 3.00 m | Civil Code Article 673, once a right to direct views has been acquired by any title, such as a contract; a contract allowing less than Article 670 is void |
| Rainwater from the roof | own land | Civil Code Article 674: onto your own land or a street, never the neighbour's, and collected so that it does not damage the land next door |
| Tall tree to the boundary | 2.00 m | Civil Code Article 679, where no local ordinance or custom sets another distance. A neighbour may demand that a tree planted closer be uprooted, including one that grew by itself |
| Shrub or small tree to the boundary | 0.50 m | Civil Code Article 679, on the same condition |
Branches that reach over your land can be cut back on your demand, and roots that cross into it you may cut yourself (Article 680). The lot coverage calculator puts these distances beside the building code's limits for a house.
Riverbanks and shorelines
Land along a river, a stream, a lake or the sea carries a public easement. The Civil Code applies it to riverbanks “even in case they are of private ownership” (Article 638), and the Water Code sets its width by where the land is. It is often called the salvage zone, after one of the purposes the law lists, though both codes call it an easement of public use. The owner keeps the land but may not build on it.
| Where | Width from the bank or shore |
|---|---|
| Urban areas | 3 m |
| Agricultural areas | 20 m |
| Forest areas | 40 m |
“No person shall be allowed to stay in this zone longer than what is necessary for recreation, navigation, floatage, fishing or salvage or to build structures of any kind.”
The Civil Code's older Article 638 sets a single 3 m zone along riverbanks. The Water Code of 1976 sets the three widths above, and its Article 100 repeals the Civil Code's provisions on easements relating to waters where they are inconsistent with it. Article 51 does not define the three kinds of area, so before you buy a lot beside water, ask the city or municipal planning and zoning office how the land is classified.
Water from higher land
A lower lot has to receive the water that runs down naturally from higher land, with the stones and earth it carries. The lower owner may not build works that block that flow unless he provides another way for the water to drain, and the higher owner may not build works that increase it (Water Code Article 50, which restates Civil Code Article 637 and adds the drainage exception). Your own roof is a different matter: its water has to fall on your land or a street (Article 674). Where rainwater collects in a yard surrounded by other houses and cannot be let out through the house itself, its owner can demand a drainage easement, with the outlet where the water leaves most easily and the conduit laid to do the least damage, after paying for it (Article 676).
This is why the neighbour's ground level belongs in the checks before you buy a lot.
Party walls, digging and nuisance
- A dividing wall is presumed shared. Unless a title, an exterior sign or other proof says otherwise, the Code presumes a party wall in the dividing walls of adjoining buildings up to their common height, in dividing walls of gardens or yards in cities, towns or rural communities, and in fences, walls and live hedges between rural lands (Article 659). Signs against it include a window in the wall and a wall built entirely within one lot, which then belongs to that owner (Article 660).
- Who pays for it. Repairs and construction of a party wall are shared by the owners in proportion to each one's right. An owner can stop paying by giving up his share, unless the wall holds up his own building (Article 662).
- No windows in it without consent. One owner may not open a window or any aperture through a party wall without the other owners' consent (Article 667).
- Digging next door. No owner may excavate so as to take away the lateral or subjacent support an adjacent lot or building needs (Article 684), and that protects buildings put up later as well as those standing now (Article 686). Anyone planning such an excavation must first notify all the owners of adjacent lands (Article 687). A deep footing or a septic pit near the line is where this matters.
- Nuisance. Every building and lot is subject to the easement against nuisance through noise, jarring, offensive odour, smoke, heat, dust, water, glare and other causes (Article 682).
What this page does not cover
- Roads the government takes land for. Acquiring private land for a public road is a separate law and is not covered here.
- Subdivision roads and deed restrictions. A subdivision's own rules on roads, setbacks and walls can be stricter than the Code.
- A dispute with a neighbour. How an easement applies to one pair of lots turns on the titles, the survey and the facts. For that, a lawyer reads the documents. An as-built plan or a survey shows where the walls actually stand, and Arktektura's as-built plans and site assessments produce one.
Sources: Republic Act No. 386, the Civil Code of the Philippines, Articles 613, 619, 634, 637, 638, 649 to 656, 659, 660, 662, 667, 669 to 674, 676, 679, 680, 682, 684, 686 and 687, and Presidential Decree No. 1067, the Water Code of the Philippines, Articles 50, 51 and 100, as published by the Official Gazette: the Civil Code and the Water Code.