Who is responsible for maintaining road servituts?

Over the course of the land reform, the citizens of the Republic of Latvia were restored to property rights to immovable property, including the land of the estate. The municipal land Commission, taking decisions on land allocation in permanent use, also ruled on servitude roads. More than 20 years have passed since the start of the land reform, but many landowners still do not fully know what the road servitude means, which must be maintained, thus causing not only a conflict between adjacent landlords. Also, there are often complaints in the municipality.
Let us try briefly to inform citizens about how to avoid unnecessary conflicts. We are convinced that a large proportion of the persons involved in these conflicts do not fulfil their duties because of their ignorance, but allow some owners to know their responsibilities, but they are ignored.
Firstly, let us recall what is this: servitude and road servitude? A servitude is a right to a foreign case with which the right of ownership is restricted to a certain person or a certain plot of land for the benefit of a specified person. "(Article 1130 of the Civil Law (CL)). A road servitude is a real servitude because it is not a person but a specific property in favour (Section CL 1156). The right of servitude becomes the right of property from the time when it is enclosed in the Land Register.
Article 6 ¹ of the Law on motorways states that “if an owner of a land which he has acquired in connection with the restoration of property rights or land privatisation is not connected by a State or local government road, such owner shall have the right to use the roads in other parcels or to install them again.”
Who is the owner of the service estate and who is the owner of the ruling estate? According to CL, the owner of the service estate is the one in which the property is transferred, but the owner of the ruling property is the one who uses the servitude.
For example, there are more disputes and uncertainties, where the servitude must be maintained in order? The owner of the land complains that his tractors are being disposed of by the user, or vice versa. Under Article 1151 OF THE CL, the road must be maintained by the user of the servitude. Consequently, the user is obliged to maintain the road. If he does not do so, the landowner may bring an action against a servitude in court.
On the other hand, if the owner of the land itself performs the road, it may be assessed as an obstacle to the use of the servitude and infringement of Article 1140 CL. The user of a servitude may bring an action in court for damages.
As the case-law suggests, it is not always sufficient to resolve such conflicts with judicial works between the owners of the land owner and the servitude. There are cases where disputes may be punished by administrative penalties (administrative penalties imposed on perpetrators) or conflicts may end with the initiation of criminal proceedings.
What if a car drives through a private road to a lake, leaving the household waste all around? Private self-owners are increasingly using the possibility to install different warning signs. How much are they binding to the public?
In a long time, the inconvenience of the owner is, of course, the first idea of putting a sign on a road to stop the irritating fool. However, as the frequently received questions show, people don't have real clarity about how to set up signs that are allowed and what not.
Section 4, Paragraph eight of the Road Traffic Law stipulates that the conformity of traffic organisations and technical means thereof (hence also road signs) with the requirements of mandatory applicable standards and other regulatory enactments shall be monitored by the State a/s “Latvian State Roads” (LVC).
Thus, in order to install a legal road mark which is taken into account by the police and for which the administrative penalty laid down in the Code of Administrative Violations may be applied, IT will always be necessary to obtain the authorisation of THE LVC specialists.
The municipality strongly hopes that the people of the municipality, reading this material, will draw appropriate conclusions and engage in the maintenance of the servitude of the servitude, thereby reducing or even excluding conflicts between themselves.
Janis Troška
Executive Director of the municipality of Rezekne