If the land burdened by an easement is later subdivided among several owners, does each new owner still have to honor it?

Indivisibility is the core rule

Article 618 opens with a flat statement: easements are indivisible. An easement is not a quantity that shrinks proportionally as the burdened land changes hands in smaller pieces; it is a single, whole burden that continues to attach to the land regardless of how many owners that land ends up having. That principle is what the rest of the article works out for the two situations that actually come up — the servient estate being divided, and the dominant estate being divided — and both are handled in a way that keeps the easement intact.

When the burdened land is subdivided

If the servient estate — the land carrying the burden — is divided among two or more owners, Article 618 says the easement is not modified: it does not get smaller, weaker, or optional for any of the new owners. Each of them must bear it on the part which corresponds to him, meaning whichever portion of the original property they end up owning remains subject to the easement to the extent it actually affects that portion. Buying a subdivided lot does not come with an automatic exemption from an easement that already existed over the larger parcel.

When the benefiting land is subdivided instead

The article also covers the reverse situation, where it is the dominant estate — the property that benefits from the easement — that gets divided among several owners. In that case, each of the new owners may use the easement in its entirety, but with two limits: they cannot change the place of its use, and they cannot make it more burdensome for the servient estate than it already was. Splitting up the benefiting property multiplies the number of people who can use the easement, not the extent of the burden imposed on the land carrying it.

Subdivision can also create an easement, not only carry one over

Article 624 deals with the case where the division itself is the event that matters. Where an apparent sign of an easement exists between two estates, established or maintained by the owner of both, that sign counts as a title so the easement continues actively and passively once either estate is alienated — unless the deed of conveyance provides the contrary, or the sign is removed before the deed is executed. The same rule applies when a thing owned in common is divided. So a drainage channel or right of way visible on the ground when a parcel is split need not be re-granted; it survives on the strength of the sign, and the deed is the moment to deal with it. Article 630 completes the picture from the other side: the owner of the burdened portion keeps ownership of it and may use it in any way that does not affect the exercise of the easement.

Related provisions

• Civil Code, Article 618 — Easements Are Indivisible
• Civil Code, Article 624 — Apparent Sign Between Two Estates
• Civil Code, Article 630 — The Servient Owner Keeps Ownership