shale gas and fracking- anyone legal out there?

[Loopyloulu]

Help! My elderly parents have a small house but an acre of garden. They recently received a letter from the church/land registry telling them that the minerals under the land belong to the church. This means in effect that their garden could be turned into a mine for shale gas.

They objected and have now received a 2nd letter from the land registry saying any further objections will have to be through the courts and they will incur the costs.

needless to say they are scared witless- they are approaching their 90s- and have lived in the house since it was built 55 years ago.

They are also worried about how the house will be valued in the future as I will inherit it, and the plan was always to sell the land to builders for development.

Anyone got any advice on this? They will consult a solicitor but I won't be with them so would like to get some info myself.

Try posting this in legal but, if the house and land is freehold,, my understanding is that your parents own everything below it. I think it's very unlikely that the church - or anyone else - will set up a fracking operation in an acre of land. Are you sure the letter is genuine?

It's a standard letter that a fair amount of people have received, due to the church having legacy rights over some land they used to own. The law had changed recently so these rights now need to be registered with land registry, which is what has happened. It is very very unlikely that the church will ever want to exercise these rights unless land in question is sizeable ( not 1 acre) as it would cost more to extract the minerals than they would raise!

Agree 100% with Patricia. Details are here:

www.churchofengland.org/about-us/structure/churchcommissioners/mineral-registration-programme.aspx

The Church always had the mineral rights to your parents' land - it has just now been registered. The Church will not extract minerals on an acre site so they can rest easy on that score. However, it could have an impact on the value of the land when your parents sell it for house as the developer would need to get permission (and pay) The Church Comissioners to put in foundations for any development. Current license fees are about 3K per house. Developers are aware of this levy; happens all the time so would factor it into their offer for the land.

Oh yes, and needless to say, no point in objecting further and incurring legal fees (unless you genuinely think there has been an mistake) as there is no ambiguity - if the Church can show the mineral rights to the court (which they obviously already posess in order to satisfy the land registry) then it's an open and shut case.

Watching this as they have found shale gas near where i live

Whilst nobody is likely to wish to plonk a nodding donkey on your land, the minerals under your land may be accessed by horizontal drilling. A drill pad could be based 2km away from your home and they can drill horizontally from that pad to extract what they want from under your property. Currently as landowner the drilling company need your permission to drill under your land, however the law maybe changing in the future to allow such drilling without your permission.

As the others have said, this is a standard land registry letter which people are receiving, as there has been a deadline of mid-October to register some rights which may exist over other people's property.

The registration is nothing new, its simply recording what already exists in the deeds.

Minerals rights refers to everything that may be found under the property, there's no guarantee that its shale or anything that could be mined.