“According to the civil law again a servitude — that is, a limited right of user in respect of a thing not one’s own, e.g. a usufruct or a right of way — could only be created by means of certain definite legal forms. The praetorian law, on the other hand, allowed a servitude to be created by a so-called quasi traditio servitutis; that is, it was satisfied if one party gave the other, without any form, permission to exercise the right of user in question.” Rudolph Sohm, The Institutes: A Textbook of the History and System of Roman Private Law 82 (James Crawford Ledlie trans., 3d ed. 1907).
quasi traditio
quasi traditio (kway-sI [or -zI] tr[schwa]-dish-ee-oh). [Latin “as if transfer”] Roman law. A party’s acquisition of a servitude by using it with the informal permission or acquiescence of the owner.
