An easement is a right benefiting a piece of land (known as the dominant land) that is enjoyed over another piece of land owned by someone else (the servient land). Under the new Land Law 2013, easement over servient land includes rights to:

·         access public roads;

·         access to water supply and water drainage

·         discharge water;

·         access to gas supply;

·         use telecommunication and electricity cables; and

·         other reasonable needs for the dominant land.

It is not clear if the last item can include negative easements such as right of light or right of air. The Civil Code require the owner of dominant land to pay compensation for the owner of servient land for the easement that the former enjoys over servient land. More importantly, from 1 July 2014, all easement needs to be registered in accordance with the new Land Law. This is a new requirement. In practice, the Government may not be able to set up an easement  registration system in time for implementation. It is not clear if the Government would provide for some grace period for registration of easement.