Ownership and the right to use an operating road does not entail the right to carry out installations in its basement. An operating road belongs to the residents, by the rights of their properties, recalled the Court of Cassation and the installation of pipes in this basement, in places where it belongs to others, can only be imposed in the event of ‘enclave.
Justice has refused a resident of a residential area the right to impose an underground pipeline in the operating road that he uses to connect the public road crossing two neighboring properties. In summary, the right to use such a path is a matter of convenience while the installation of an easement must be a matter of necessity.
The farm road is a private road which is not necessarily agricultural but can be urban, whose existence is not linked to an enclave state and whose use can be prohibited to third parties. All these residents served have the right to use it for convenience, to communicate with each other or to access their plot.
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But contrary to what a local resident, user of this path, argued, if it is a question of creating an easement there, it must then be necessary, and no other solution can be found. However, the owner who requested this installation was not landlocked. He had the possibility of going elsewhere, even if this elsewhere was longer or less practical.
(Cass. Civ 3, 29.6.2023, E 21-25.526).
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