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18 November 2010 / Keith Davies
Issue: 7442 / Categories: Features , Property
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Subterranean trespassers

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Keith Davies explores the world of trespass to land & drilling for oil

What view is taken by English property law of a dispute between two neighbours one of whom has tunnelled beneath the other’s land without so much as a by-your-leave and the other objects to this? “Absurdly simple”, as Watson said to Holmes or vice versa…But such an imbroglio recently came all the way up to the Supreme Court, with five Justices sitting; and on one of the two issues involved all five justices were agreed, whereas on the other issue they were divided. They were unanimous that a trespass had been committed, but on the financial consequences they divided 3-2.

In Bocardo SA v Star Energy UK Onshore Ltd and another [2010] 3 All ER 975, Lord Hope DP, giving the first judgment, said the issues, raised by the case, fell into two parts: “First, there is the question whether the drilling of the three wells under Bocardo’s land was an actionable trespass. Secondly, if there was an actionable trespass, there is

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