Can You Sue Your Neighbor Over a Gas Well?

Source: Andrew Reinbach, Huffington Post

When you bought your house you didn’t buy just dirt and bricks; you bought what lawyers call a “bundle of rights”. This includes the right of quiet enjoyment.

Quiet enjoyment means more than the right to sit on your porch and watch the sunset; it includes the right to enjoy the value of your property. If your neighbor does something to hurt this right, he has to pay you the before-and-after difference — to make you whole, as they say.

It’s called nuisance law, and means everybody has the right to do what they want with their property — as long and they don’t hurt anybody else. If they do, they have to pay.

So, since banks won’t lend money on a house near a gas well unless the owner can prove their water supply will always be safe, and that can’t be done — i.e.: where there’s gas drilling, property values collapse – does it follow that if your neighbor leases his land for gas drilling, you should be able to sue to make you whole?

Read entire article here.