Who owns the land beneath your feet.

[Heyesey]

If you wholly own your land and house freehold (not leasehold) Then technically all you own is a lease from the Queen, If you die with no will or relative who can make a claim on your estate, The queen gets your property.

 

 

The second sentence is irrelevant to the first. On what grounds do you claim that the Crown has the ultimate lease on all land?

[Waltheof]

Because of the historical hangover of the Feudal System into modern times (although feudalism was formally abolished, I believe, by the Land Act of 1925), the Crown does indeed own all the land in the country and can therefore resume estates if they become vacant.

 

Does The Crown Estate take ownership of ‘unclaimed land’?

 

Freehold land can sometimes effectively become ownerless. When this happens title to the land may, in certain circumstances, revert to the Crown as the ultimate owner of all the land in the England and Wales. This process is called ‘escheat’. It can happen in a variety of situations, the most common being:

 

a) when freehold land which belonged to a dissolved company is disclaimed by the Treasury Solicitor (to whom the assets of the company passed when the company was dissolved);

 

b) when freehold land which belonged to a company being wound up is disclaimed by the liquidator of the company;

 

c) when freehold land which belonged to an individual is disclaimed by their trustee in bankruptcy, or the Official Receiver; or

 

d) when a foreign company (which for these purposes includes a company registered in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man) which owned freehold land in England or Wales is dissolved.

 

The Crown Estate deals with escheat where the land falls within England and Wales and outside Cornwall and the County Palatine of Lancaster – where escheat is dealt with by the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster respectively. The Crown Estate is not directly involved with escheat in Scotland. Escheat should not to be confused with what in common parlance might be called ‘unclaimed land’. Land can often have no apparent owner, but The Crown Estate will not generally be involved with such land unless it has been the subject of escheat as set out above.

 

Land comprised in the estates of persons who died intestate without known kin is administered by the Treasury Solicitor.

[DIVA]

.......God?

[StarSparkle]

The second sentence is irrelevant to the first. On what grounds do you claim that the Crown has the ultimate lease on all land?

 

 

The Crown does. It's a legal fact

 

StarSparkle

 

PS Oops, sorry, Waltheof, just read your post!

[alex3659]

Right who owns the land beneath your feet, not the land your house is on but the earth say 50 or more feet down. I work near Stoney Middleton and explore the surrounding caves. So who owns the caves, land, mineral seams etc. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7672341.stm says tunnels under London going for 5 million, so whats to stop you digging your own tunnels 100foot down. This is theory though as I'm not planning on going out with a shovel.

 

cavemen .......

[Greybeard]

Don't think it matters really, - the 'Crown' = the 'Sate' and if anyone is going to steal your freehold it will either be the State or by proxy the Local Authority by means of compulsory purchase.

 

All freehold means is free of 'service and obligation' in the medieval sense. If you were to have absolute title and died intestate with no heirs there would need to be some mechanism to bring the land back into use.