Where a plot of land sold has the boundaries identified, prima facie, the conveyance will also include all the land within and below the boundaries.
Lord Cozens-Hardy MR said: ‘In my opinion we should be going contrary to perfectly well settled principles of law if we were to allow for a moment any doubt to arise on the construction of those two conveyances, which alone we must look at. We can have no doubt as to their meaning and effect. It seems to me quite clear that they are conveyances of everything – conveyances of the land whch include (unless you can find something to the contrary) everything down to the centre of the earth. The grant of the land includes the surface and all that is supra – houses, trees, and the like . . And all that is infra, ie mines earth, clay and co . . It is to my mind quite clear as a matter of construction of the conveyances that not merely the surface rights but the whole substratum to the centre of the earth, even including the vacant spaces from which during the term the coal may have been worked out by the lessees – all that passed by the conveyances to the Mitchells.’
Swinfen Eady and Phillmore LJJ agreed with Cozens Hardy saying this was a recognised principle of law.
Judges:
Lord Cozens-Hardy MR, Swinfen Eady and Phillmore LJJ
Citations:
[1914] 1 Ch 438, [1914] LJCh 438, [1914] 109 LT 648
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Grigsby v Melville CA 6-Jul-1973
The seller had owned two adjoing properties. He sold one off to the plaintiff, describing it in the conveyance as ‘all that dwellinghouse’. A cellar under the part sold off had access only from the retained property, but contained supports for the . .
Cited – Star Energy Weald Basin Ltd and Another v Bocardo Sa SC 28-Jul-2010
The defendant had obtained a licence to extract oil from its land. In order to do so it had to drill out and deep under the Bocardo’s land. No damage at all was caused to B’s land at or near the surface. B claimed in trespass for damages. It now . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land
Updated: 07 May 2022; Ref: scu.244813