When does the clock actually start running on acquiring an easement through long use?

The count depends on which kind of easement it is

Article 621 does not use one single starting point for every easement acquired by prescription. It splits the rule into two, one for positive easements and one for negative easements, because the two kinds of easement work in physically opposite ways — one involves doing something on another's land, the other involves stopping someone from doing something on their own land. Getting the classification right matters, because applying the wrong branch of the rule will produce the wrong start date for the whole prescriptive period.

Positive easements: the clock starts with actual use

For a positive easement, the period runs "from the day on which the owner of the dominant estate, or the person who may have made use of the easement, commenced to exercise it upon the servient estate." This ties the start date to an observable fact — actual use beginning on the servient land — rather than to any paperwork or notice. A right-of-way actually being walked, or water actually being drawn, is what starts the clock, not an intention to do so at some future point.

Negative easements: the clock starts with a formal act

A negative easement works differently, because there is no physical use on the servient land to point to — the whole point is that the servient owner is restrained from doing something. So the period instead runs "from the day on which the owner of the dominant estate forbade, by an instrument acknowledged before a notary public, the owner of the servient estate, from executing an act which would be lawful without the easement." The starting point here is that specific formal, notarized prohibition — not an informal request, and not simply the servient owner's voluntary restraint.

Why the distinction changes what evidence matters

Because the two starting points are built on different facts, the evidence that proves when the clock started differs accordingly. For a positive easement, what matters is proof of when actual use on the servient estate began. For a negative easement, what matters is the date of the notarized instrument that formally forbade the act — nothing short of that acknowledged instrument starts the period running under this article's own terms.

Cases citing this provision

These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.

• Sps. Tedy Garcia and Pilar Garcia vs. Loreta T. Santos, Winston Santos and Conchita, G.R. No. 228334, June 17, 2019 — read the decision on LawPhil →

Related provisions

• Civil Code, Article 621 — Computing the Prescriptive Period