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Question: what happens to land rights after a quake? Since the quake moves land around, stretching in parts and destroying land into cracks in others. Do prop

by brador 10y ago

Question: what happens to land rights after a quake? Since the quake moves land around, stretching in parts and destroying land into cracks in others. Do property lines get redrawn? Who owns any newly created land space? Is it fair game for anyone to claim?

celticninja 10y ago
It doest really work like that, it's not like new land is created by pushing out into the sea, but even if it was the property owners boundary is likely the sea, therefore the land is incorporated within their area.
- slazaro 10y ago
  But what if you have a fence that gets shifted around, and no longer matches the boundaries in the property maps?
- brador 10y ago
  Say there's a crack or fissure that opens up, creating new "space". Someone then fills that crack with soil making new "land". Or say the land under a fence moves. Since land ownership diagrams contain specific measurements, are they redrawn? Replaced? Accepted? Measurements ignored and features used instead (apple tree to 7th fence post)? If my property deed says my yard is 20 metres wide, but post earthquake it's 21 because a 1 metre wide split occured in it what happens when I sell? Is accuracy thrown out the window?
  - evgen 10y ago
    My best guess would be that the state would claim original ownership of the new land. If you take a small coastal lot and then start building landfill out into the ocean you are going to have a hard time convincing the state that you own the property without some pre-existing contract with the appropriate regulatory bodies stating this when you started construction.
- JshWright 10y ago
  It very much does work like that though... The San Andreas fault is a "strike-slip" fault. The plates are (effectively) moving past each other, in opposite directions. Imagine you owned a rectangular piece of land, with the fault running right up through the middle of it. After an earthquake, the western half of your property is now shifted a non-trivial distance to the north relative to the eastern half. What happens to the property line? Does it now have a 'kink' in it? Does it remain in the same place relative to the 'ideal' geodesic plane (meaning various landmark like fenceposts, etc, are now in a different place relative to the property line). It's certainly an interesting question...
  - evgen 10y ago
    You have ownership of a piece of land, not a spot on a map. If the land moves then you still own the land even if it is non-contiguous. I am not sure what happens in the case where some event creates new land adjacent to yours such as the case where a lava flow extends land out past yours into what was once water or if an uplift fault raises seabed to become contiguous with yours, but I would assume that the state would claim ownership over the new land.
    - ptaipale 10y ago
      What happens to "newly created land" depends on local legislation. Where I live (Finland) this is a common question, because it happens all the time. We're still recovering from the depression of ground, caused by latest Ice Age. In Western Finland and Eastern Sweden, the land rises at about 1 cm per year, thus claiming area from the sea. 1 cm per year may not sound like a lot, but in shallow waters, it means that entire coastal towns become inland towns over the course of 100 years. Harbours have to be relocated, etc. Kilometres of new land is claimed from the sea over the course of centuries (and within a couple of millenia, the Gulf of Bothnia will dry up in places and create a land connection across, assuming water level rise caused by global climate change does not slow it down too much). Over here, the law works so that the newly created land at the shore becomes property of the owner of the water area (fishing) rights which is a "commonwealth" of local land owners, but the owner of the particular piece of land formerly adjacent to the sea or lake has the pre-emptive right to purchase the area and attach it to his/her property, at a "fair" price i.e. price comparable to the price of his/her own property. So in effect you have to remember to buy regularly (every few decades) the new land between your plot and the water. But that was Finland. How does this work regarding land created or lost in earthquakes in California? Let's assume that the fault line of tectonic plates happens to run through your plot, the plates push at each other and then in an earthquake run over each other, and the corner points of your plot move closer to each other. Is that just your loss? I.e. your plot became smaller? And likewise, if the borders of your plot move away from each other in an earthquake, your property expands, possibly impacting e.g. how large buildings can be constructed according to zoning regulations?
noobermin 10y ago
Question: what happens to your IP when it ends up on a torrent and the world copies it all over? Human institutions do not win against nature/reality. Not that we shouldn't try, but we have to remember that our institutions are limited ultimately by the laws of physics and mathematics/statistics.
whoopdedo 10y ago
You should ask the residents of Hollister. http://www.bldgblog.com/2015/04/the-town-that-creep-built/ http://www.bldgblog.com/2015/04/the-town-that-creep-built/
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Animats 10y ago
California has the Cullen Earthquake Act to deal with that.[1] That's a consolidation law, so that all the claims in an affected area can be resolved in one court proceeding. [1] http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=ccp&group=00001-01000&file=751.50-751.65 http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=ccp&gr...
petrikapu 10y ago
Million of lives in question you care about profits
- spdustin 10y ago
  I don't think that's it at all. It seemed to me to be a purely intellectual curiosity, and one that I share. The logistics of something like the redrawing of property lines after the land itself has moved is well outside of our wheelhouse for most of us, I suspect the answer elucidated in a sibling of your comment was interesting to quite a few people.

by brador 10y ago

celticninja 10y ago

It doest really work like that, it's not like new land is created by pushing out into the sea, but even if it was the property owners boundary is likely the sea, therefore the land is incorporated within their area.

slazaro 10y ago
But what if you have a fence that gets shifted around, and no longer matches the boundaries in the property maps?
brador 10y ago
Say there's a crack or fissure that opens up, creating new "space". Someone then fills that crack with soil making new "land". Or say the land under a fence moves. Since land ownership diagrams contain specific measurements, are they redrawn? Replaced? Accepted? Measurements ignored and features used instead (apple tree to 7th fence post)? If my property deed says my yard is 20 metres wide, but post earthquake it's 21 because a 1 metre wide split occured in it what happens when I sell? Is accuracy thrown out the window?
- evgen 10y ago
  My best guess would be that the state would claim original ownership of the new land. If you take a small coastal lot and then start building landfill out into the ocean you are going to have a hard time convincing the state that you own the property without some pre-existing contract with the appropriate regulatory bodies stating this when you started construction.
JshWright 10y ago
It very much does work like that though... The San Andreas fault is a "strike-slip" fault. The plates are (effectively) moving past each other, in opposite directions. Imagine you owned a rectangular piece of land, with the fault running right up through the middle of it. After an earthquake, the western half of your property is now shifted a non-trivial distance to the north relative to the eastern half. What happens to the property line? Does it now have a 'kink' in it? Does it remain in the same place relative to the 'ideal' geodesic plane (meaning various landmark like fenceposts, etc, are now in a different place relative to the property line). It's certainly an interesting question...
- evgen 10y ago
  You have ownership of a piece of land, not a spot on a map. If the land moves then you still own the land even if it is non-contiguous. I am not sure what happens in the case where some event creates new land adjacent to yours such as the case where a lava flow extends land out past yours into what was once water or if an uplift fault raises seabed to become contiguous with yours, but I would assume that the state would claim ownership over the new land.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    What happens to "newly created land" depends on local legislation. Where I live (Finland) this is a common question, because it happens all the time. We're still recovering from the depression of ground, caused by latest Ice Age. In Western Finland and Eastern Sweden, the land rises at about 1 cm per year, thus claiming area from the sea. 1 cm per year may not sound like a lot, but in shallow waters, it means that entire coastal towns become inland towns over the course of 100 years. Harbours have to be relocated, etc. Kilometres of new land is claimed from the sea over the course of centuries (and within a couple of millenia, the Gulf of Bothnia will dry up in places and create a land connection across, assuming water level rise caused by global climate change does not slow it down too much). Over here, the law works so that the newly created land at the shore becomes property of the owner of the water area (fishing) rights which is a "commonwealth" of local land owners, but the owner of the particular piece of land formerly adjacent to the sea or lake has the pre-emptive right to purchase the area and attach it to his/her property, at a "fair" price i.e. price comparable to the price of his/her own property. So in effect you have to remember to buy regularly (every few decades) the new land between your plot and the water. But that was Finland. How does this work regarding land created or lost in earthquakes in California? Let's assume that the fault line of tectonic plates happens to run through your plot, the plates push at each other and then in an earthquake run over each other, and the corner points of your plot move closer to each other. Is that just your loss? I.e. your plot became smaller? And likewise, if the borders of your plot move away from each other in an earthquake, your property expands, possibly impacting e.g. how large buildings can be constructed according to zoning regulations?

noobermin 10y ago

Question: what happens to your IP when it ends up on a torrent and the world copies it all over? Human institutions do not win against nature/reality. Not that we shouldn't try, but we have to remember that our institutions are limited ultimately by the laws of physics and mathematics/statistics.

whoopdedo 10y ago

You should ask the residents of Hollister. http://www.bldgblog.com/2015/04/the-town-that-creep-built/ http://www.bldgblog.com/2015/04/the-town-that-creep-built/

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Animats 10y ago

California has the Cullen Earthquake Act to deal with that.[1] That's a consolidation law, so that all the claims in an affected area can be resolved in one court proceeding. [1] http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=ccp&group=00001-01000&file=751.50-751.65 http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=ccp&gr...

petrikapu 10y ago

Million of lives in question you care about profits

spdustin 10y ago
I don't think that's it at all. It seemed to me to be a purely intellectual curiosity, and one that I share. The logistics of something like the redrawing of property lines after the land itself has moved is well outside of our wheelhouse for most of us, I suspect the answer elucidated in a sibling of your comment was interesting to quite a few people.