Land Registry Practice Guide 65 – Issued March 2006
Registration of Mines and Minerals

In the Authority’s view, any investigation into the title to mines and minerals in a coal mining area cannot be regarded as having been properly undertaken without an inspection of the Coal Holdings Register and a detailed analysis of the information contained in it.

It is important to note, for the purposes of the vesting provisions in the Coal Act 1938 the expression “coal” included not only bituminous coal, cannel coal and anthracite, but other minerals and substances if they were comprised in a Lease subsisting as at 1st January 1939 which conferred the right to work and carry away both such coal and the other minerals and substances.  Such Leases need to be examined to see whether the freehold of the other minerals and substances to which they refer vested in the Coal Commission.  In relation to holdings registered in the Coal Holdings Register (held by the Authority) Leases should be listed (with brief particulars) in the appropriate column and copies of those Leases should be contained in the files associated with each registration, now held by the Authority at Mansfield.

As a prelude to the Coal Act 1938, the Coal (Registration of Ownership) Act 1937 established the Coal Holdings Register for the registration of particulars as to subsisting proprietary interests in coal and mines of coal and other minerals in Great Britain and of certain property and rights held in association with them.  In order to qualify for compensation in respect of the vesting in the Coal Commission under the 1938 Act, it was necessary for claimants to comply with (amongst other things) the registration requirements of the 1937 Act.

The Register provides a ‘snap shot’ of the ownership of minerals in coal mining areas during the 1930’s/1940’s and is useful, if not vital, in providing a link between owners of minerals when they were severed from the surface and those claiming ownership today.  Should the Land Registry receive an application for registration of mines and minerals in a coal mining area, and the applicant is unable to show a direct link from him to the claimant under the 1937 Act, there must be considerable doubt on the validity of the title deduced.

Whilst the Authority can provide practitioners with extracts from the Register (with a fee payable –  see our scale of charges ) it does not have the resources to offer advice or comment on a claim to mineral ownership.