How much land beneath my land do I actually own?

How much land beneath my land do I actually own?

There are many definitions of what land actually means. The statutory definition is as follows -

Section 205 of the Law of Property Act 1925 defines land as including:

‘land of any tenure, and mines and minerals’.

Meaning if you own the land, you also own the land beneath the surface. However, UK law allows for different people or parties to hold the rights to surface and the all the stuff underneath the surface. You may only bought the surface when you were sold your land - in this case the surface and land beneath your land has been separated. The land registry knows exactly what landowners own.

So if you own land and the land beneath your land, you also own all the gold, silver, coal, and gas there too, right?

Wrong.

Firstly all the Gold and Silver are that occur in the ground are owned by the crown thanks to Royal Mines Act 1424.

Gas is a hydrocarbon, along with oil and coal, and has been vested in the crown since the creating of the Petroleum (Production) Act 1934. Coal is an exception to this and is owned by the Coal Authority) It has since been updated but stays true to its original meaning.

Petroleum (Production) Act 1934

(1)Her Majesty has the exclusive right of searching and boring for and getting petroleum to which this section applies.

(including petroleum in Crown land) which for the time being exists in its natural condition in strata in Great Britain or beneath the territorial sea adjacent to the United Kingdom.

Petroleum being:

(a)includes any mineral oil or relative hydrocarbon and natural gas existing in its natural condition in strata (with the exception of coal.

In short any petroleum within the UK is owned by the crown.

Who can get the oil? - The act has that covered too -

Petroleum (Production) Act 1934

(1)The Secretary of State, on behalf of Her Majesty, may grant to such persons as he thinks fit licenses to search and bore for and get petroleum to which this section applies.

(b) (3)Any such license shall be granted for such consideration (whether by way of royalty or otherwise) as the Secretary of State with the consent of the Treasury may determine, and upon such other terms and conditions as the Secretary of State thinks fit.

This means the Government can license energy companies who they see fit to extract that petroleum.

Fracking (Hydraulic Facturing) - the process of injecting millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals at high pressure down and across horizontally drilled wells to extract natural gas, has become a hot topic because the Government wants to access all the lucrative treasure underneath people's homes. The problem is they have to dig through peoples land to get there.

Imagine you own a house and the land beneath your house. Within the boundaries beneath you is a pocket of gas. In order to access this gas the energy company would have to drill through some of the land that is yours. They would have to get your permission because otherwise it would be trespass (disturbance of possession. Permission normally comes with money from the energy company.

If the pocket of gas extended out with the boundaries of your land, the energy company doesn't need to get permission from you at all - they only need to get the permission of the Government in the form of a permit, on behalf of the crown, to take that gas.

The Government has been met with resistance in Scotland when a map of planned Fracking areas was released.

What can people do about it?

Well, at the moment it people are starting to seem pretty powerless.

The Scottish Government released the following statement on the 25th of September:

"The) UK Government have announced that they are to remove the rights of householders to object to oil and gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing beneath their homes. This will include householders in Scotland, and comes despite 99 per cent of respondents to the UK Government consultation on the proposals objecting to them."

It will mean that companies will be allowed to drill below people’s land without first negotiating a right of access with the landowner.

However they would still need regulatory permissions such as planning and environmental permits.

This is a pretty bold move by the UK Government seeing as 99 percent of their respondents were against the idea.

Why have the Government ignored people?

The Government isn't making as much money off oil.

The UK Government state: 

"Since 2003, as North Sea Oil has declined, we have become a net importer of oil and gas and are now increasingly dependent on international energy resources."

The UK is tight on cash and wants to independently generate its own energy.

So, if you owned the house in the first example (if energy companies drilled below 300ft) you could do "diddly squat" because it would no longer be trespass.

Apart from this being a significant step towards the death of democracy, why are people up in arms about it?

Fracking brings with it a number of risks.

Environmentalists are against high carbon fuels because they are so bad for the environment being a major contributor to global warming. On that note, the UK Government statement when justifying the removal of landowners' rights stated: "We know that our journey towards a low carbon future will take time and that emerging energy industries often need Government support to get going." So by digging up more carbon resources to burn....they are planning on reducing their...carbon....burning. Someone might need to go back to school.

In the US, scientists warn of health risks related to Fracking, namely due to contamination of surface water with chemicals that affect human hormone functions.

Other risks include blowouts from toxic chemicals; Fracking induced earthquakes, large volume water usage, and sinkholes.

It will be interesting to see how all this plays out. If Oil revenue in the UK is declining is the Government right to be changing the law to allow for easy exploration and extraction of gas? If you disagree what are the alternatives?

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Until next time, it's SciPhiBye!