Lateral and subjacent support, in the

law of property Property law is the area of law that governs the various forms of ownership in real property (land) and personal property. Property refers to legally protected claims to resources, such as land and personal property, including intellectual prop ...

, describes the right a landowner has to have that land physically supported in its natural state by both adjoining land and underground structures. If a neighbor's excavation or excessive extraction of underground liquid deposits ( crude oil or

aquifers An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing material, consisting of permeability (Earth sciences), permeable or fractured rock, or of unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Aquifers vary greatly in their characteristics. The s ...

) causes subsidence, such as by causing the landowner's land to cave in, the neighbor will be subject to

strict liability In criminal and civil law, strict liability is a standard of liability under which a person is legally responsible for the consequences flowing from an activity even in the absence of fault or criminal intent on the part of the defendant. Und ...

in a

tort A tort is a civil wrong, other than breach of contract, that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with cri ...

action. The neighbor will also be strictly liable for damage to buildings on the landowner's property if the landowner can show that the weight of the buildings did not contribute to the collapse of the land. If the landowner is unable to make such a showing, the neighbor must be shown to have been negligent in order for the landowner to recover damages. If the landowner owns everything beneath the ground on his property, he may convey to another party the rights to mineral deposits under the land and other things requiring excavation, such as

easement An easement is a Nonpossessory interest in land, nonpossessory right to use or enter onto the real property of another without possessing it. It is "best typified in the right of way which one landowner, A, may enjoy over the land of another, B" ...

s for buried conduits or for water wells. However, such a conveyance requires the recipient to prevent any damage to the surface of the land caused by the excavation unless the conveyance itself grants express authority for the surface land to be damaged, "as reasonably necessary" for the recipient to exercise his extraction rights.

References

Real property law {{Law-stub