Owning of land

[hubblebubble]

If a person owns a piece of land do they own it all the way down to the centre of the earth???

[Baby Jane]

Hey hubblebubble

Good question, dont know the answer but I bet you get some good ones.

[Octavius]

A coelo usque ad centrum - from the sky to the centre of the earth - is certainly something which is explicit in Scottish land law, but not in England and Wales (can�t find a definitive answer). Whilst this in theory this means that you would own everything under the footprint, including the subsoil, anything further down is likely to be the subject of much planning and land law legal debate. Also, to have anything worthwhile so deep down � you would have to own a very large patch of surface land indeed!

[Octavius]

In fact, my trigonometry is a little rusty to say the least, but if we assume that the outer surface of the inner core is 5,800 kilometres deep, then you would need to own the freehold of circa 300million km� which is about two-thirds of the current land mass on the planet to be able to build a decent sized house � unless you had many storeys of course! Given the climate and temperate nature of the inner core though, it wouldn�t be a nice place to dwell.

This is just for fun, and no doubt a true mathematician will dispute and correct me.

[Baby Jane]

wow octavius are you clever or what, thats amazing

lol
xxx

[Octavius]

I think it's more..'or not'.

[heathfield]

They may not own the rights to minerals under their land. That can be a pretty complex issue.

[Baby Jane]

ok,out of my depth now

[buildersmate]

I've seen Land Registry records for caves in Wiltshire, originally cut by miners excavating for Bath stone. The freeholders on the surface own the land to about 6 feet down only.