On 6 February 1987, I wrote an article for NLJ under the heading of ‘Are Finders Keepers?’, 137 NLJ 118, based on the case of Elwes v Brigg Gas Co (33 Ch D 562) in 1885. Since then, a great deal has happened in the world of possession and ownership, on which this celebrated case was based. Could the owner of land own objects under the surface—sometimes a very long way under—of which they had no knowledge whatsoever? Or, in giving a lease to another to excavate, did what the lessee found belong to them, given that they had no knowledge either of what they did find, in course of their excavation?
Who owns what?
The property law of England became largely, though not entirely, the result of evolution, rather than revolution. The English, or the British perhaps, have always been loath to abandon anything quaint or whimsical, which is so much part and parcel of a
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