| 释义 |
cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos
[Latin: whoever owns land it is theirs up to the heavens and down to hell] A maxim, attributed to the 13th-century jurist Accursius, that describes the vertical extent of an owner’s right in land; this is taken to include the substrata, the surface, and airspace. In Wandsworth Board of Works v United Telephone Co (1884) 13 QBD 904, Justice Bowen dismissed this as a “fanciful phrase and one rejected with a united voice by academics”. However, the maxim was approved by the Supreme Court in Bocardo SA v Star Energy UK Onshore Ltd [2010] UKSC 35, [2011] 1 AC 380 in relation to oil wells far below the surface of the ground. The principle that any incursion onto land below the surface will be a trespass has now been explicitly restricted by the Infrastructure Act 2015, which was passed to permit fracking. Under the Act, “deep level land” (at least 300 metres below surface level) may be used for the purpose of exploiting petroleum or deep geothermal energy without the consent of the landowner. Moreover, some minerals are vested in the Crown by common law (gold and silver) and others by statute (e.g. oil and gas). Rights to airspace are limited to the height required for ordinary use of the land (Bernstein v Skyviews [1978] QB 479). |