onus of establishing that a servitude right has been properly constituted will fall to the party who seeks to  have  its  constitution  declared.  Accordingly,  subject  to  the  one  exception outlined  in the  following paragraph, the Keeper will include a servitude right in a title sheet only where it has been constituted by express grant by the owner of the servient tenement, or by Act of Parliament, or is supported by the production of a declaratory court decree. In cases prior to the end of 1997 where a servitude right, said to have been constituted by implied grant or possession alone, has been entered in the title sheet of the putative dominant tenement, but subject to exclusion of indemnity, the Keeper will review the position at the end of the prescriptive period, if requested to do so. As part of that review he will consider evidence advanced to justify removal of the exclusion of indemnity. Servitudes a non domino 6.59 Clearly there are occasions when, notwithstanding the best efforts of practitioners to discover the identity of the owner of a servient tenement so that formal conveyancing to obtain a servitude right can take place, no such owner can be traced. In such circumstances, where the solicitor is not content to rely on the terms of section 3(1)(a) and instead seeks to have a servitude right expressly referred to in the title sheet the Keeper may be prepared to accept a servitude which is granted a non domino. Registration of an a non domino servitude interest will be accompanied by an exclusion of indemnity note  in  the  title  sheet  for  the  prescriptive  period:  twenty  years  in  terms  of  section  2(1)  of  the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973. It is emphasised that where the owner of a servient tenement can be identified the Keeper will not accept registration of a servitude right on an a  non domino basis. Discharge of a servitude 6.60 Although a servitude may be effectively discharged by acquiescence or other informal means, the Keeper  will  not  remove  a  servitude  right  from  a  title  sheet  unless  presented  with  a  formal discharge/renunciation  of  the  servitude  right  by  the  party  entitled  to  grant  such,  or  a  court  order extinguishing the servitude right. Servitudes and indemnity 6.61 In order to disclose the existence of a servitude right in a title sheet, the Keeper, on registration, must  be  satisfied  that  the  servitude  has  been  validly  constituted.  In  terms  of  section  12(3)(l),  the Keeper will not indemnify the proprietor of the dominant tenement if a servitude subsequently turns out  to  be  unenforceable.  A  servitude  may  be  lost  by  non-use  or  other  supervening  event  and  the Keeper cannot investigate every case to find out whether or not a servitude subsists. Indemnity is payable to the proprietor of the dominant tenement only in respect of a claim relating to the validity of the constitution of a servitude. If the Keeper makes an error in the land certificate on that point, the proprietor of the dominant tenement who suffers loss through the error may be entitled to indemnity. The  restrictions imposed by section 12(3)(l) apply only to the proprietor  of the  dominant tenement. As far as the servient tenement is concerned, a servitude right is an overriding interest. In terms of  section  12(3)(h),  no  indemnity  is  therefore  payable  to  the  servient  proprietor  for  any  error  or omission in the noting of the servitude in the title sheet for the servient tenement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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