The acquisition of easements by prescription in Maltese law (1)

Abstract

The laws of Malta admit prescription, or more properly usucapio, as one of the means of acquiring easements, beside. the law, a title, and the intention of the original owner of the land (destination clu pere de fwmille). In considering prescription with regard to easements, however, due importance should be attached to the various distinctions of easements in our law, such distinctions being the following: continuous and discontinuous, apparent and non-apparent, affirmative and negative. With regard to this last distinction, moreover, our legislator, unlike the French and the Italian, explicitly defines the characteristics of affirmative and negative easements in article 152, as he ,dioes with regard to the other kinds of easements in article 151, whereas the above-mentioned legislators include the said distinction only incidentally, and those characteristics are merely implied. Here, therefore, our law is more accurate. Furthermore, our law gives. various instances of continuous, discontinuous, apparent and non-apparent easements, thus eliminating all doubts into which class a given easement falls.