Lateral support is a legal concept that requires landowners to provide natural physical support to adjacent properties. Excavations and resource extraction can cause damage to neighboring properties, making the landowner conducting the activity legally liable. The law aims to protect the interests of all landowners by outlining their responsibilities towards each other.
Lateral support is a legal concept involving adjacent landowners. By law, landowners are entitled to natural physical support from properties that adjoin theirs. If someone makes major changes to a property that cause damage to a neighboring property, the owner of the affected property can sue in court. Therefore, people need to be careful when engaging in activities that could cause damage to the property next door.
A classic example of a situation where lateral support occurs is in excavations. Property owners may excavate to create basements, lay underground utilities, or for other purposes. While excavating, people are required to establish retaining walls and take other steps to protect nearby property. If the digging causes subsidence and collapse next door and the neighbor can prove that digging was the cause, the landowner conducting the digging will be legally liable.
Resource extraction is another context where lateral support becomes important. People can dig wells to access an aquifer or deposits of resources such as oil and minerals. During resource extraction measures must be taken to prevent subsidence of nearby properties. If a landowner leases resource extraction rights to another party, that party is responsible for upholding the law and ensuring that neighboring properties are not deprived of their lateral support.
Lateral support laws recognize the fact that while landowners have the right to use their land as they please, some activities can adversely affect neighboring properties. Just as people are not allowed to carry out polluting activities, even on private property, because these activities harm neighbors, people cannot undermine the lateral support of an adjacent property, even with fully permitted activities, such as digging for a basement .
The lateral support problem with trenches can be a particularly large problem in urban areas. Lot lines are often narrow, and it’s very easy to cause damage to nearby property with tasks such as digging a basement for a high-rise building. When new structures are planned, the company supervising construction usually develops extensive plans for building conservation laws and on-site monitoring conditions for any signs that the lateral support of neighboring properties is weakened.
This concept in the law is designed to protect the interests of all landowners by spelling out the responsibilities adjacent landowners have towards each other. There are a number of other laws that affect people owning adjacent property.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
