Pasture meaning

In legal practice, pasture refers to the right to graze specified livestock on land owned by someone else. In England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland it is treated as a profit à prendre (a right to take part of the natural produce of another’s land). In Scotland, the equivalent is the servitude of pasturage. It can be appurtenant to a dominant tenement or held in gross, and its scope is typically limited by the instrument or custom: class and number of animals (stint), seasons, and the area to be grazed. The right is usually created by express grant or reservation, prescription or statute, and is primarily defined by common law and case law rather than a single statutory definition. “Common of pasture” is a form of pasture exercised over common land, regulated and recorded (in England and Wales) under the Commons Act 2006 and the commons registers. Key features include: reasonable exercise without overburdening the servient land; non-exclusivity; and potential extinguishment by release, merger, statute or prolonged non-use. For transactional due diligence, pasture/grazing rights should be investigated and, where applicable, protected or registered under the relevant land registration regimes to bind successors in title.