Private Ownership of Minerals in British Columbia

Approximately 94 per cent of the land base in B.C. is owned by the provincial Crown. The remainder is owned privately (5 per cent) or by the federal Crown (1 per cent). Whether on provincial Crown or private land, the Province owns most minerals (which includes coal, petroleum and natural gas). Rights to explore and develop Crown minerals are obtained as a form of tenure issued by the provincial Crown, which remains the owner of the minerals.

This means that people who own “private property” like a house or a piece of land, do not own the subsurface rights. This is standard throughout Canada.

Background
Up until the early part of the 20^th century grants of private land may have included rights to the surface, the minerals or both. These private mineral rights are:

	typically found in areas of early settlement, mineral exploration or railway development,
	referred to as “private” or “freehold” mineral rights, and
	may be connected to, or entirely separate from, the ownership of the surface of the land.

The separation of surface and subsurface mineral ownership is typical in Canada, and allows governments to develop public assets like mineral resources on behalf of all citizens.

Today, it is often unclear where exactly these private or freehold mineral rights occur and which minerals are included as this information has not been tracked through time. Therefore, to identify where they occur, it is necessary to research into the title history of the property.

Land and Mineral Ownership
Private land ownership is registered at the Land Title and Survey Authority in the form of a Certificate of Title (CoT).

If the Crown grant creating the property included rights to some or all the minerals, then mineral ownership is included in the title to the property unless the rights have been returned to the Crown. If the Crown grant did not include these rights, mineral ownership is not and never has been a component of the title to the property.

This results in a series of challenges:

The terms of the original Crown grant do not appear on the CoT so it is not possible to tell from the CoT whether someone other than the Crown owns mineral rights in the land.

Where mineral rights were included in the grant, the owner of the land may have since separated and retained, or sold the mineral rights separate from the surface. In those instances, the mineral owner registers the interest in the mineral rights as an “undersurface” charge against the surface owner’s title. But, these charges do not always clearly identify to which minerals ownership is being claimed.

Rural Versus Urban
The question of who owns minerals in the land is generally not of major importance in urban areas because regulations limit development near residences or buildings. But in rural and undeveloped areas away from residences or buildings, it can be an important issue because mineral exploration and development may occur.

Review Process
In order to know who owns the mineral rights in private property, it is necessary to review the original Crown grant and other land title records to determine:

	what minerals, if any, were included in the grant from the Crown, and
	which of these minerals may have since been transferred to third parties.

In 2002, the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources began reviewing private mineral title in B.C. A part of this project will include introducing a review process to confirm and register private mineral title. The Ministry intends to table legislation to address this at some point once the review is complete. When developed, the review process leading to mineral title confirmation will involve consultation with landowners and other interested parties identified through researching the property title history.

Program contact: Barbara Thomson

Last Updated June 02, 2006