A prescriptive easement by lost modern grant cannot be established against a servient owner who is not in possession or occupation of the servient tenement because the land is leased to tenants. The tenants, not the landlord, hold the right to bring an action in trespass during the subsistence of the lease, and the landlord's failure to erect barriers or take other preventive steps does not constitute acquiescence where the landlord has no power or obligation to do so. In apartment blocks, tenants may have exclusive possession of external common property as against the landlord.
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