Land Law- extent of interests (space law)

Question 1

What is included in land?

Answer 1

This common law position is affirmed by Section 71 of the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Act 2009 (The Reform Act 2009) which sets out that any conveyance of land includes buildings, cellars, drains, sewers, fixtures, fences, lights, hedges, water, gardens, outhouses, passages, as well as other features that form part of the property.

Question 2

What is the definition of land?

Answer 2

“land” includes, any estate or interest in or over land, whether corporeal [tangible land interest] or incorporeal [some kind of entitlement or right in respect of land].

Question 3

Discuss Above and below land

Answer 3

The owner of the land will to some extent have ownership below and above the land unless the property has been legally divided in some way (e.g. if I own an apartment I do not own the apartment below or above). Cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad coelum et usque ad inferos (ownership is up to the heavens and down to hell).

Question 4

Discuss a case below the land: Grigsby v Melville

Answer 4

Owner of two semi-detached houses adjoined to each other sold one and attempted to keep the basement underneath. The only access to the basement was through the house he had kept for himself but the basement was underneath the sold house. the court held that most house owners do not expect to have a tunnel under their house.

Question 5

What does article 10 of the Irish constitution govern:

Answer 5

1) All natural resources, including the air and all forms of potential energy
2) All land and all mines, minerals and waters

Question 6

What does the minerals development act 1979 state? :

Answer 6

Section 12: The exclusive right to work minerals is vested in the Minister.This is interpreted to mean that the State has a right over all minerals even those in privately owned land. But this has never been legally challenged. This means that anyone who wishes to mine for minerals must obtain a licence from the relevant minister.

Question 7

Petroleum and other minerals development act 1960

Answer 7

Section 4: All State petroleum vests in the Minister and his successors.
Section 5: All petroleum which is not State owned shall vest in the Minister and his successors but compensation is payable.
Section 15: Gives the holder of a petroleum lease the right to enter onto the relevant land to mine for petroleum. This right is also given to the relevant Minister.
Section 16: Compensation must be provided for any damage to the land.

Question 8

Discuss Star Energy Weald v. Bocardo

Answer 8

Star Energy obtained a licence from the UK State to remove oil from a particular area of land. The UK State, like the Irish State has certain entitlements to minerals and petroleum found in the ground and therefore had the power to grant drilling licences to companies to carry out this process. However, in this instance the land owner was unaware that they were drilling underneath as Star Energy could drill diagonally from the neighbouring land to extract the oil under his land. The drilling took place at 900-2,900 feet below Bocardo’s land. He argued that a trespass had taken place as he owned the land “up to the heavens and down to hell”. The court therefore held that therefore held that Star Energy Weald had committed trespass on Bocardo’s land.

Question 9

What piece of legislation was enacted after Star Energy Weald v Bacardo?

Answer 9

The infrastructure Act 2015

Question 10

Discuss the infrastructure act 2015

Answer 10

Section 43(1): “A person has the right to use deep-level land in any way for the purposes of exploiting petroleum or deep geothermal energy….….(4) Deep-level land is any land at a depth of at least 300 metres below surface level.”

Question 11

What did the infrastructure act remove

Answer 11

The UK Infrastructure Act 2015 therefore removed the necessity of providing compensation to landowners if the petroleum/geothermal energy is below a certain depth.

Question 12

The Roads (Amendment) Act 1998

Answer 12

Soil below the land may be acquired to make a tunnel

Question 13

Planning and development (strategic infrastructure) act 2006

Answer 13

This act sets out that land situated 10+ metres below the surface is of no value unless it can be established otherwise (thereby limiting how much compensation the state would have to pay to acquire land.)

Question 14

ABOVE THE LAND: Lord Bernstein of Leigh v Skyviews and general Ltd

Answer 14

Skyviews flew over Bernstein’s land to take photographs and then tried to sell them to Bernstein. He sued for trespass claiming that the airspace they had flew in over his land belonged to him. The court held that this was not trespass.

Question 15

What is stated in the air navigation and transport act 1936?

Answer 15

Section 55: there can be no action for trespass in respect of an aircraft flying over land as long as the height above the ground is reasonable taking weather conditions and other circumstances into account.

Question 16

Kelson and Imperial Tobacco Company

Answer 16

The Imperial Tobacco Company erected a sign which extended into the airspace above Kelson’s premises 8 inches above. This was found to constitute trespass onto Kelson’s property.

Question 17

Woollerton and wilson Ltd v Richard Costain Ltd

Answer 17

A crane was hanging over the neighbouring property at 50 feet above the roof. It was held that this constituted a trespass. However, the injunction that had been granted was suspended to allow the building work to continue with compensation being the appropriate remedy. There was thus a recognition that the crane was not substantially interfering with the property interests of the neighbour by favouring compensation over and injunction.

Question 18

Flying Freeholds

Answer 18

Land can be owned in horizontal layers. Section 3 of the Reform Act 2009: Land and airspace above the land is capable of being divided into horizontal and vertical divisions of land.