ANON

DESCRIPTION OF TERMS: EASEMENT, DILAPIDATION, AND

BUILDING REGULATIONS

EASEMENT:

An easement is a legal right that allows someone (easement holder) to use another
person's land for a specific purpose, this could include crossing the land or using it for utilities.
The landowner still owns the property, but the easement holder has defined rights. Cui (2011)
described easement as a kind of usufructuary right generated following the contract or under
certain legal contexts with its main purpose of granting one party some rights to use the property
of others to improve the benefits of his own real estate. Easements are typically recorded in
property deeds and are legally binding.

According to Zhu (2005), easement can be traced back to ancient Roman law in the case
of the disintegration of the primitive commune and the privatization of land in ancient Rome. In
ancient Rome, the land was originally public; However with increase in population over the
years public ownership was not enough for productivity, and the land was then altered from
public to private. At the same time, to maintain the original state of public use, the Romans
created the concept of farming easement to use the land of other people. Later, Roman legislation
gradually established the easement legal system.

In the 21st Century, among developed countries the most practiced form of easement is
the conservation easement where land trusts, partnered with government agencies or acting
alone, are working to conserve habitat, open space, and working landscapes on private land
(Rissman et al., 2007). There are other forms of easements practiced around the globe based on
the specific purpose the easement is intended can be granted to individuals, organizations, or
government agencies.

CLASSIFICATION OF EASEMENT:
 There are different forms of easements, and a crucial distinction is between an easement
appurtenant, an easement in gross and a conservation easement.

I. Appurtenant Easement: An appurtenant easement runs with the land and serves a
parcel of land known as the dominant tenement, while the parcel of land on which the
easement is imposed is known as the servient tenement. The servient tenement is
incapable of existence separate and apart from the particular land to which it is
annexed (Winningham, 1998). The appurtenant easement benefits the estate, the
dominant, while it is a burden upon the other, the servient (Kiley, 1952).
II. Gross Easement: Unlike an appurtenant easement, easement in gross, is not attached
to the land and is personal to the parties. Accordingly, the easement in gross does not
have a dominant tenement because it benefits a person or an entity but not the land
(Winningham, 1998).
III. Conservation Easement: A conservation easement is a special type of easement with
benefit to the land itself. Conservation easement is a right or interest in real property
granted by the owner to a person, entity, or organization, generally referred to as land
trusts, who has interest in preserving biodiversity on that land (Rissman et al., 2007).

Easement classification is the fundamental process. In general, private easements including

conservation easement, created for access to particular territories are posited to be "appurtenant
easements" unless explicitly identified to be "easements in gross". Public or quasi-public utility
easements are recognized as "easements in gross". In addition, easements that are not
appurtenant to any specific land are categorized as "easements in gross".

There are also many other methods to classify easements. With regard to space, there are
three types of easement: subsurface, surface, and overhead easements. The subsurface easement
includes water construction, gas pipelines, sewer lines, tunnels or other communication lines.
The main characteristics of subsurface easement is that the project remains below the surface and
is unseen. However, surface easement impacts the surface area. Examples of surface easement
are railroads, highways, flowages, drainages, etc. The typical overhead easement is the electrical
transmission lines of the avigation easement. There are also easements that may involve two or
even all three of the aforementioned types of space (Snajberg et al., 2015). Thus, while generally
classified as one of these three broad classes of easements, most easements involve multispace
occupancy (Sherwood, 2006). Additionally, the easement can be sorted by its content into; water
easement, easement of access, benefit easement, landscape easement, easement of standing wall,
etc.

DILAPIDATION:

Dilapidation refers to the state of decay or partial ruin of a building or property due to
neglect, misuse, or inadequate maintenance. It can be caused by natural decay, ageing,
inadequate maintenance, faulty design, faulty construction, human factors, chemicals,
atmospheric factors, moisture, fire, and natural disasters. Bartram (2023) defined dilapidation as
the state of being old and in poor condition such as crumbling bricks, rotting wood, leaking
roofs, buckled floors, holes in walls, and drafty windows; Stating dilapidation as routine to
connote that it occurs over the life of all physical structures, although it gets worse and
potentially dangerous if unattended.

Dilapidation is inevitable and happens over a period of time. According to Saranya et al.
(2017), building dilapidation refers to the progressive deterioration and decay of structures,
resulting from neglect, inadequate maintenance, or other contributing factors. Every building
material has a life-span however it is a recommended practice to carry out maintenance and
service procedures of buildings to maintain or enlarge the original life-span of a building. Failure
in carrying out these procedures can ultimately lead to collapse which as described in the
perspective of a civil engineer Ede (2016), is a failure in a structure due to its inability to serve
the purpose for which it was built.

Ndlebe (2017) also emphasized that building disrepairs should not be left unattended as
dilapidation pose significant challenges to the sustainable development, revitalization of cities,
and may lead to urban decay.

DILAPIDATION REPORT AND SCHEDULES:

Maintenance is usually the responsibility of the property owner, however in the situation
of renting or leasing of property, there are documentations put in place with respect to service
procedures and maintenance of a building, these documents are the dilapidation report and
schedules. A dilapidation report will have details including pictures of the current state of a
building before a lease. The purpose of this is to ensure the property is in good state by the owner
before the lease, and restored back by the tenant after a lease to a considerable condition to
which it was at the start of the lease term. The dilapidation schedules however are documentation
procedures to achieving a seamless maintenance during transitioning of property, that is the lease
term. There are three forms of dilapidation schedules which are:

I. Interim Schedule of Dilapidations: If a landlord believes that their tenant is not

looking after their leasehold building as they should be by the terms of their lease,
they may decide to serve an interim schedule of dilapidations to encourage them to
repair the building. An interim schedule can be served at any time during the lease
term, although it would not normally be served in the final two to three years before
the lease expires as another type of schedule is likely to be more appropriate at that
point in the lease. Normally, the objective of an interim schedule of dilapidations is
for a specific action, for example requiring a tenant to complete the necessary work.
In this context, it would being appropriate to include costs as financial remedy is not
the aim.
II. Terminal Schedules of Dilapidations: A terminal schedule of dilapidations can be
served near the end of the lease, typically within the last 18 months to three years a
terminal schedule of dilapidations will consider the dilapidations liability accrued at
the point of preparation of the schedule, and it serves to guide the tenant as to the
work required to remedy non-compliances with the lease. This schedule gives tenants
an opportunity to complete the necessary works themselves to avoid a financial
settlement. Alternatively, a tenant may instead decide to budget for a financial
settlement. This can often be a favourable option as a lot of commercial entities are
focused on their core business and they have neither the time nor the inclination to
become involved in the disruption that building works bring.
III. Final Schedules of Dilapidations: A final schedule of dilapidations is served once the
lease has ended. In many cases, this is the only schedule of dilapidations served upon
a tenant. However, it is possible that the tenant has first been served by a terminal
schedule. If additional damage is found after lease end, at this point the terminal
 schedule may be adapted and rebadged as a final schedule. Under the dilapidations
protocol, a final schedule of dilapidations should normally be served in a reasonable
time after lease end, normally within 56 days. At this stage, a tenant will have no
legal rights to re-occupy their premises unless a separate agreement with the landlord
is reached. In this instance, therefore, the only remedy to address breaches of the
lease is payment of financial damages by the tenant to the landlord.

BUILDING REGULATIONS:

Building regulations are government-imposed standards dictating how construction

projects should be executed to ensure safety, accessibility, and sustainability. They encompass
various aspects such as structural integrity, fire safety, energy efficiency, and accessibility.
Compliance is mandatory for project approval and to safeguard occupants. Non-compliance can
result in legal consequences and project delays.

Funke et al. (2020) described building regulations as guides to architects and engineers
when designing new buildings or renovating existing buildings in vulnerable areas. According to
the International Code Council, ICC (2012), building regulation is a model code that provides
minimum requirements to safeguard the public health, safety and general welfare of the occupants
of new and existing buildings and structures To buttress on the definition provided by the ICC, the
Australian Government Productivity Commission(2018), articulates that building regulations may
also be affected by building approval process, planning approval process, standard setting and
accreditation of products, people and process, environmental regulations, occupational health and
safety regulations.

In Nigeria, building regulations are put in place to ensure the safety and structural integrity
of buildings. The Nigerian Building Code is the primary code for building and construction
practices in Nigeria. It provides minimum standards to safeguard life and property and further
guarantees public health and safety for different building types. The code outlines the minimum
requirements for building design, construction, and maintenance, covering various aspects,
including structural design, electrical systems, water supply and drainage, fire protection systems,
and ventilation. The National Building Code was first drafted in 1987, and a revised version was
released in 2006. State Governments are implored to integrate the provisions of this Code into their
local laws, particularly those relating to Design, Construction, and Maintenance (Post
Construction) and efficiently monitor the implementation of the Code. The existing National
Building Code is based in part on the 2000 International Building Code. (Ogunbiyi, 2014).

References:

Adena R. Rissman, Lynn Lozier, Comendant, T., Kareiva, P., Kiesecker, J. M., Shaw, M. R., &
Merenlender, A. M. (2007). Conservation Easements: Biodiversity Protection and Private
 Use. Conservation Biology, 21(3), 709–718. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4620868

Bartram, R. (2023). Routine Dilapidation: How Homeownership Creates Environmental Injustice.

City & Community, 22(4), 266-285. https://doi.org/10.1177/15356841231172524

Cui, W., 2011. The popularization interpretation of easement (in Chinese). Citiz. Law (Leg. Ed.)
(1), 22–24.

Ede, A. 2016 Structural Stability in Nigeria and worsening Environmental Disorder: the way
forward. The West Africa Built Environment Research Conference (WABER), Accra, Ghana.

ICC, “IECC - International Energy Conservation Code,” Int. Code Counc., 2012.

Kiley, D.L., 1952. Effect of tax deeds upon appurtenant easements in the district of Columbia.
Georget. Law J. 41, 542.

Ndlebe, AN. (2017). Assessing the impacts of urban decay on the residential land uses. Master’s
degree in Town and Regional planning, The case of Durban south beach, South Africa.

Ogunbiyi, Moses. (2014). The National Building Code and the Construction Industry Professionals
in Nigeria.. International Journal of Social Sciences and Enterpreneurship. Ogunbiyi, M. A.
(2014). The national building code and the construction industry professionals in Nigeria.
International Journal of Social Sciences and Enterpreneurship, I (12), 937 -948.. 937 -948.

Sherwood, D., 2006. Easement valuation. Int. Right Way Organ.

Snajberg, O., 2015. Valuation of real estate with easement. Procedia Econ. Financ. 25, 420–427.

Winningham v. Harris, 981 SW 2d 540 - Ark: Court of Appeals, 2nd Div. 1998.

Zhu, Y., 2005. Investigation and analysis of the easement system of Roman Law. J. Heilongjiang
Adm. Adm. Cadre Coll. 3, 78–80.