218 Statutory Right Of Way

• 218 (1) A person may and is deemed always to have been able to create, by grant or otherwise in favour of

• (a) the Crown or a Crown corporation or agency,
• (b) a municipality, a regional district, the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority, a local trust committee under the Islands Trust Act or a local improvement district,
• (c) a water users’ community, a public utility, a pulp or timber, mining, railway or smelting corporation, or a pipeline permit holder as defined in section 1(2) of the Energy Resource Activities Act, or
• (d) any other person designated by the minister on terms and conditions that minister thinks proper,

• an easement, without a dominant tenement, to be known as a “statutory right of way” for any purpose necessary for the operation and maintenance of the grantee’s undertaking, including a right to flood.
• (2) To the extent necessary to give effect to subsection (1), the rule requiring an easement to have a dominant and servient tenement is abrogated.
• (2.1) The minister may delegate to the Surveyor General the minister’s powers under subsection (1)(d).
• (3) Registration of an instrument granting or otherwise creating a statutory right of way

• (a) constitutes a charge on the land in favour of the grantee, and
• (b) confers on the grantee the right to use the land charged in accordance with the terms of the instrument, and the terms, conditions and covenants expressed in the instrument are binding on and take effect to the benefit of the grantor and grantee and their successors in title, unless a contrary intention appears.

• (4) A person who executes an instrument in which a statutory right of way is created is not liable for a breach of a covenant in the instrument occurring after the person has ceased to be the owner of the land.
• (5) This section is retroactive in its application and applies to all statutory rights of way, whenever created.
• (6) A recital in a grant or reservation of a statutory right of way that it “is necessary for the operation and maintenance of the grantee’s undertaking”, or a statement to that effect in the application to register the statutory right of way, is sufficient proof to the registrar of that fact.

1979-219-214; 1992-77-3, effective July 3, 1992; 1998-30-96, effective March 31, 1999 (B.C. Reg. 84/99); 2003-66-41; 2004-66-105, effective January 20, 2005 (B.C. Reg. 16/2005); 2007-41-71, effective November 30, 2007 (B.C. Reg. 399/2007); 2008-36-146, effective October 4, 2010 (B.C. Reg. 274/2010); 2022-42-60, effective September 1, 2023 (B.C. Reg. 187/2023).