The Collaborative International Dictionary
Dominant \Dom"i*nant\, a. [L. dominans, -antis, p. pr. of dominari: cf. F. dominant. See Dominate.] Ruling; governing; prevailing; controlling; predominant; as, the dominant party, church, spirit, power.
The member of a dominant race is, in his dealings with
the subject race, seldom indeed fraudulent, . . . but
imperious, insolent, and cruel.
--Macaulay.
Dominant estate or Dominant tenement (Law), the estate to
which a servitude or easement is due from another estate,
the estate over which the servitude extends being called
the servient estate or tenement.
--Bouvier.
--Wharton's
Law Dict.
Dominant owner (Law), one who owns lands on which there is an easement owned by another.
Syn: Governing; ruling; controlling; prevailing; predominant; ascendant.
Wikipedia
A dominant estate is the parcel of real property that has an easement over another piece of property (the servient estate). The type of easement involved is almost always an appurtenant easement. Likewise, it is almost always an affirmative easement, that is, one that permits a person to do something. Estate is a common law concept.
A dominant estate is also called a dominant tenement, as noted in a section of an article on easements.
In real estate law, it is the property retained when the original owner (the seller or grantor) splits off a property and conveys part of the original property; the owner retains an easement for an access (such as a driveway or utilities).
In certain cases, dominant estate refers specifically to a parcel or building premises that is subject to a cell tower or a solar panel: "that parcel of land to which the benefits of a solar access easement attach."
Usage examples of "dominant estate".
As easements were said to belong to the dominant estate, it followed that whoever possessed the land had a right of the same degree over what was incidental to it.
But where an easement has been actually created, whether by deed or prescription, although it is undoubtedly true that any possessor of the dominant estate would be protected in its enjoyment, it has not been so protected in the past on the ground that the easement was in itself an object of possession, but by the survival of precedents explained in a later [241] Lecture.