cave ownership questions

[dhparker]

(For fictional purposes, of course. )

If a farmer discovers a cave opening on his land, does he own the cave underneath? Or do caves fall under "mineral rights" and he wouldn't own the cave unless he owned the mineral rights?

If it turned out he did own it, how much would he own? Just the part under his property? If it turned out to be a big system and he wanted to turn it into a show cave, how would he go about it? Or is that even allowed any more?

Oh, remember this story is set in MO if that makes a difference in the laws.

Thanks!
Donna

[Tony Anders]

HA HA HA, I have a lot of response to this.

However as far as the legality of it I don't know if it would be right or not.

But I would almost bet if the farmer found a cave on his land, he wouldn't want responsibility of people going into the cave and getting injured, but I would say if he found out there was diamonds of other precious minerals into the cave itself, I am sure he would want to reap the royalties.

As far as mineral rights, I would like to think if I found a cave under my house it would be my cave.

If not and there was a way for the government to undermine your land from another tract of land so they could keep the royalties for themselves. don't think they wouldn't.

Yea, you all can probably tell that I don't trust big government. Ha ha.

This is just my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions.

[L Roebuck]

My understanding is concerning my state, unless the land owner sold the mineral rights or never owned them to begin with, the land owner would own the cave that is under his property. Now if that same cave also ran under the neighbors property then the neighbor would own the portion of the cave that runs under his property.

Many states have cave laws, liability laws, etc. The Southeastern Cave Conservancy has a list of Cave Protection and Liability Laws on their website with links at scci.org/preserves/cavelaws.html
But Azurerana can probably give you better info on Missouri Caves and Laws, its her home state.

[Azurerana]

By Missouri Supreme Court rule 1935 in Indian Creek Land Co vs Robert Bradford (Onondaga Cave owner) that a person in Mo. owns their land to the center of the earth (and can control it) unless mineral rights are split off in the legal deed, and sold or leased to someone else.

That being said, there is still a lot of wink, wink nudge nudge stuff going on with recreational caving. Not so with show caves, which are required to have a cave survey showing the horizontal extent of the cave. But if there is a fence underground, (Onondaga and Missouri Caverns (physically part of the same cave, but with multiple owners of parts of it in the 1930s had a fence-- Harry Truman reputedly chucked rocks across it--as a publicity stunt, the Dems were meeting in one cave, the Reps the other) you better not cross it.

So, basically, the farmer would own the part of the cave which runs under his land, but he has no particular claim to parts that don't, just because he owns the natural entrance. If you want to make it interesting, he could have sold his mineral rights to a lead company, or the deed could have been encumbered with mineral leases when he bought it, and he just didn't ask.

If you want to read about this land ownership problem in glorious detail read Onondaga: The Mammoth Cave of Missouri by H. Dwight Weaver.

[dhparker]

Thanks Tony, Lynn and Azureana for all the great information and ideas! A., I'll look for that book.

Donna

[graveleye]

This is why you always get a title search when you buy a piece of land to make sure there arent any leans against the property, ie mineral rights.