pusha

iTrader: (5)

the wife or the running of endless trains on beautiful bronzed blonde bitches in between mile long rails of dat white girl?

Stein

iTrader: (46)

Well, the water is about 4 feet below the level of the cabin so you won't get too deep before you get wet.

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

Legally? You own it all the way to the core of the earth, and you own what's above your house all the way to the heavens.

There are, of course, some restrictions - you can't just dig up your earth, destroying all of the buried utilities beneath it, you don't own those.

You also can't build something so tall that you impede air/space travel - or at least I suspect that's the case.

And your building has to stay within zoning regulations, but building a 10 story underground batcave/blast shelter/zombie bunker doesn't exactly interfere with any zoning stuff.

y8s

iTrader: (8)

do you technically own a pyramidal spherical sector of earth underneath your property? otherwise everyone would be fighting over what's way down near the core for property rights.

of course the upside is you own an infinitely* expanding spherical pyramid wedge that is as tall as the universe is deep from earth, so that's cool.

* rounding based on lack of tape measure to get exact numbers.

chpmnsws6

iTrader: (12)

You high...

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

It varies by deed.

In the US, an Estate in Fee Simple is the most common form of land ownership, and the one most commonly seen in residential property. A Fee Simple estate grants ownership of the surface, the land beneath the surface, and the airspace above the surface. I've never seen a specific description of the sub-surface rights "diminishing in a pyramidal wedge" per se, however I assume that were it to be tested, the court would likely find this to be a suitable description.

The property does not extend infinitely upward throughout the universe, however, as the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty forbids anyone from claiming ownership of any celestial body, or of outer space itself, or of any portion thereof, although it does confer a de-facto easement for anyone to place spaceraft or other objects into space, and protects the ownership interest of said party of the object once it is in international space.

The treaty itself does not explicitly define the boundary of outer space, however the conventionally-accepted boundary for such purposes is the so-called Kármán line, 100km above sea level. (One could also argue that the boundary is at 80km, as that is the altitude at which NASA considers a pilot to be an astronaut.)

One area in which I am totally unclear concerns the apparent easement which exists over all private property in the US to allow for the overhead passage of aircraft. I am not aware that any property owner has ever challenged the right of, say, a commercial airliner to fly over their property on the grounds of trespassing. This would be an interesting one to test in court, if anybody here is feeling particularly bored and happens to own an accurate radar tracking system




Now, moving on:

The right to access and excavate the earth beneath the surface of a property is known as the Mineral Rights to a parcel of land. Normally, the mineral rights to a property are attached to and conveyed alongside the surface rights, as in the above example. Mineral rights are, however, severable from surface rights, and can be sold to a second-party while still retaining surface rights. Mineral rights can even be subdivided into the rights on specific minerals (eg, coal rights can be sold to one entity, limestone rights to a second, and oil and gas rights to a third.)

When mineral rights are severed from surface rights, an inherent conflict can arise vis-a-vis access. If one wishes to excavate the copper beneath a parcel, it is necessary to disturb the surface of the parcel, at least insofar as that a shaft or mine entrance can be created. Such rights of access should be defined within the sale of the mineral rights in question.

There are, of course, some cases in which such a conflict does not arise, such as when a company already owns surface or surface access rights to a parcel which is adjacent to a parcel on which they own only mineral rights- said entity could employ horizontal drilling from the first parcel to gain access to oil or gas beneath the second parcel, without disturbing the surface of the second parcel. Obviously such an arrangement carries with it the risk of damage such as subsidence to the second parcel, which may occur long after the drilling has ceased. You'd need to ask a real lawyer what recourse the owner of the second parcel might have in such an event.

curly

iTrader: (25)

I knew we were getting too existential to avoid a typical Joe Perez explanation. Thanks Joe!

y8s

iTrader: (8)

eminent domain. i suspect people let it slide most of the time.

triple88a

iTrader: (2)

In to see Stein make the resident evil underground building (The Hive).

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

So this turns out to be really interesting.

In common law, the principle of ad coelum (long form: Cuius est solum eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos) has held that "for whoever owns the soil, it is theirs all the way up to Heaven and down to Hell."

And this principle has in fact been tested in the courts, though for a surprising reason.

In United States v. Causby, the court ruled that under the Air Commerce Act of 1926 and the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938:(The matter at hand was whether US bomber aircraft over-flying the Causby farm at extremely low altitude caused 150 chickens to freak out and kill themselves by bashing against the walls of the coop.)

The court further found that:
Furthermore, some property deeds (eg: those very near airports) may be encumbered with a navigational (or avigational, to be precise) easement. This is conceptually similar to the more common forms of property easement which grant, for instance, the right of a utility company to bury pipes or wires under a certain portion of your property (usually adjacent to a street) and to access that portion of your property for the purpose of maintaining same.

In this case, an avigational easement grants permission for aircraft to use the airspace above your land in a manner which would otherwise constitute a taking (for instance, flying below 500 feet or generating noise or turbulence) when those aircraft are FAA certified and operating within the parameters of FAA regulation and local airport procedure.

Such easements may be applied by eminent domain (usually requiring reparation) or they may be purchased from a property owner in a manner similar to the aforementioned severable mineral rights.


So essentially, yes, you do own the airspace above you, however you have exclusive control over only so much airspace as you "need" in order to enjoy full and unencumbered use of your property. Beyond that, the sky is considered to be a Public Highway.


Who knew that property law could be so much fun?

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Or just dig a replica of Enrichment Shaft 09 (roughly 4.5km deep) from Portal 2.

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

I wonder if I dug 100 feet underground, then expanded radially far beyond the reaches of my legal propery rights, how long do you think it would take for the rest of the world to discover that I was trespassing on their property? If it was longer than 7 years, would I then have common law rights to that property which I had occupied?

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

OcCUPY THE UNDERGROUND!!!!!!

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

No.

The concept in question here is Adverse Possession, and the fundamental idea that you're describing is sound.

There are, however, a number of specific elements which have evolved over the years which must all be satisfied in order for a claim of Adverse Possession to be valid. One of these is the concept of "Open and Notorious Use," which in simple terms means that you cannot keep your occupation of the property in question a secret. You must instead occupy the property in a manner which makes it obvious that you are doing so.

In Lawrence v. Town of Concord, the court ruled:

The purpose of the requirement of ‘open and notorious’ use is to place the true owner ‘on notice of the hostile activity … so that he, the owner, may have an opportunity to take steps to vindicate his rights by legal action.

Similarly, in Boothroyd v. Bogartz, the appeals court found that:

To be “open,” the use must be without attempted concealment… For a use to be found notorious, it must be sufficiently pronounced so as to be made known, directly or indirectly, to the landowner if he or she maintained a reasonable degree of supervision over the property.

Under these precedents, your timeline for establishing adverse possession does not begin until AFTER your neighbors notice that you have been tunneling under their property, or until after you do something (eg: erect a large sign saying "secret entrance to tunnels which run under my neighbor's house here") which a reasonable person would understand as notice that you are tunneling through the earth below adjoining properties.

Your only defense here would be to argue that a reasonable person should be expected to conduct regular underground imaging scans of their property (such as with ground-penetrating radar) and it is highly unlikely that the court would accept this claim.

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

So I should place a sign at the front of my house, announcing my occupation of my neighbors property. It's their own fault if they don't believe me...or choose to do nothing about it, I told them I was doing it.

Better put that sign out there now, so my house will go up in value in 7 years!!

Thanks for the sound legal advice!

Stein

iTrader: (46)

Installed sod on my island today. Other than a little fiasco with the first load - I didn't take enough sod so the barge was tail heavy so I couldn't get backed up close enough. I tried to back it up the muddy slope, got stuck and it took me a while to get out. The little homemade loader proved itself though. I had the motor half under water and it powered through like a champ. Sorry no pics of that.

We got the sod in big rolls and cut them down and re-rolled.

2,400 square feet, about 10,000 lbs worth.



After that I left the loader on the island and a buddy that had his bobcat there loaded the sod onto the barge. OK, OK, it's not really a barge, but a floating rotationally molded dock but it holds up to 7,000 lbs, per the manufacturer's website. Without having to haul the loader back and forth each time there was more room for sod. We would load two pallets on the front and one on the back which kept it nose-heavy which made it easier to beach. On the last load we got a bit optimistic, not wanting to come back for just one pallet. Mike looks on, debating if we went too far.



His fears were unfounded. We took it all, plus Mike and Rob. Mike not visible because he's holding up that leaning pallet like a bauce.



My loader with a pair of forklift forks that I whipped up last week showing the unloading.



Finished.

chpmnsws6

iTrader: (12)

More pictures of the homemade loader are needed.

That'd be prefect for moving round bales in and out of the barns.

curly

iTrader: (25)

Needs roll cage.

Bryce

iTrader: (24)

ftfy

18psi

iTrader: (76)

so much win in here omg