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For valuable items with no obvious paper-trail, how is proof of ownership determined if it's disputed?

Example, I'm aware that in many countries if a meteorite falls on your land, then you own it, but consider this...

Bob's a farmer, one morning he discovers a meteorite has landed on his field. A quick bit of googling tells him it worth a £million. Bob puts the meteorite up for sale. Bob's neighbour Sue gets winds of this, and thinks "Bob's field is tiny, it's surrounded on all sides by my much-larger fields, it's more likely that Bob found the meteorite on my land and took it"

If Sue decides to dispute ownership, with whom would the burden of proof reside? Would a court assume that since Bob physically possesses the item it belongs to him and leave it to Sue to prove otherwise? Or would the court turn to Bob and say "we know you have it, but what makes you think you own it?"

My questions isn't so much about who owns the item, it's more about who has responsibility to prove ownership?

In the case of many item (houses, cars, works of art etc) there will be some form of paper trail of receipts, land registry records, contracts or even bank transactions. In the example above (assuming no independent evidence either way) would a court accept Bob's statement "I found it on my fields", or would they assume Sue statement "He took it from one of my fields" was true?

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  • Related: law.stackexchange.com/questions/86825/… Commented Sep 30 at 15:30
  • This question is similar to: How do you prove a fact at issue in litigation?. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem. Commented Sep 30 at 19:53
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    This question is similar to: How is the burden of evidence distributed between parties?. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem. Commented Sep 30 at 21:46
  • Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on Law Meta, or in Law Chat. Comments continuing discussion may be removed. Commented Oct 2 at 14:18
  • @Brian, that proposed duplicate is tagged for criminal law, whereas this is tagged for civil law - that's a significant difference between the two. Commented Oct 8 at 12:24

4 Answers 4

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With the person wanting to change the status quo

Bob has the meteorite. That's not going to change unless someone does something to change that.

Sue can say she owns it as much as she likes, but if she wants the situation to change, she needs to sue Bob. That makes her the plaintiff—the onus of proof rests with the plaintiff.

This is generally the case in every civil action. The defendant is usually happy with the status quo, and the plaintiff wants to change it; therefore, they must initiate the lawsuit, which is what makes them the plaintiff.

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  • Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on Law Meta, or in Law Chat. Comments continuing discussion may be removed. Commented Sep 30 at 21:40
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Possession is good title against all the world except those having a better title.

If you have something in your possession, it's legally yours unless someone else proves in a court of law that it is his. It is insufficient for that someone else to prove that a third party has better right to it. If I steal your hat, and then John Doe steals it from me, I can reclaim the hat. Only you can reclaim the hat from me.

The assertion that it was more probable that it was found in her fields is ludicrously inadequate to prove better title, and she's the one who would have to offer the evidence.

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Sue, not having custody, has the burden of proof

(I assume that under Bob’s version of events, he is indeed the owner of the meteorite, and that under Sue’s version, she is. This is not obvious at all, per the next section.)

Article 2276 of the civil code :

En fait de meubles, possession vaut titre.

Custody of a movable good is title to it.

What is or is not a "movable good" makes for funny 2L exam papers, but for the present case it is exactly what you think it is (article 528: "goods that can be moved from one place to another are movable by nature").

Sue’s factual assertions might invalidate that title, but she bears the burden of proof. In the absence of tangible evidence, her speculation will not carry the day in court.

Property law of meteorites

I am not sure at all that "if a meteorite falls on your land, then you own it" under French law.

My own (quick) analysis would be that

  • none of the specific statutes (for crops, hunted game, hidden treasure, mineral rights, ...) applies
  • it is (at least before being found) a bien sans maître ("good without master" - see the Roman law doctrine of res nullius),
  • therefore the general rule of article 713 of the civil code applies: the local commune (= county) owns it

...but then, it is not clear that article 713 applies to meteorites. On its face, it does, but the procedural statutes handling how the commune can take custody of res nullius assume that the good is either "unmovable" (basically: "a building") or that it is part of an estate with no inheritors (see this section of the code of property for public legal persons), and all case law is about those cases anyway. Maybe the usual res nullius Roman doctrine (occupatio aka "finders keepers") applies? Or maybe some version of the prescription acquisitive (= adverse possession) rules, where Bob becomes the owner instead of the commune if the latter does not take action within a given timeframe?

My search also turned up this parliamentary written question. The question asserts that it is generally the finder who holds the property rights. The minister’s answer (presumably, checked by competent legal counsel) asserts that various court cases held either the finder or the landowner as being the owner. Neither gives any citation to specific court cases, and it does not really change the MP’s concerns (that the state does not have preemption rights, hence scientists may be barred from studying those meteorites - whereas there are quasi-preemption procedures for archeological finds, for instance.)

While fascinating, this is not really the core of the question, so I did not research any further.

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  • It's interesting to note that English common law also had a famous dispute over whether it was the finder or the landowner who had rights. Commented Oct 2 at 15:59
  • See onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/… on the ownership of meteorites and other systems Commented Oct 2 at 17:18
  • It seems very tricky! If I am Bob, I then just call it a rock. Commented Oct 8 at 15:39
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Owner rights in Sweden

This actually (almost) happened in Sweden. The Swedish supreme court ruled that the meteorite belonged to the finder, not the landowner. Here's the summary of the verdict (google translated) from the court:

In a meteorite fall in November 2020, a meteorite landed on a property outside Enköping. Two geologists found the meteorite and handed it over to the Swedish Museum of Natural History for safekeeping. The owner of the property on which the meteorite had fallen filed a lawsuit against the geologists for better rights to the meteorite.

The Supreme Court notes that there is no legislation that addresses the ownership of meteorites, nor any specific regulation that concerns the rights or obligations of the person who finds a meteorite. Instead, ownership must be assessed based on the rules on what constitutes real property.

A meteorite is different from rocks and other such materials that form part of real property. It is unique in terms of its properties and in that it comes from space. The starting point, according to the Supreme Court, should therefore be that a meteorite does not form part of the real property on which it has landed. This does not exclude the possibility that a meteorite may become an integral part of the Earth and thus become part of the real property.

The meteorite that fell on the property outside Enköping therefore did not belong to the property owner. The geologists who found the meteorite had the right to take it with them. Taking into account what emerged in the case, they were considered to have acquired ownership of it.

(https://www.domstol.se/nyheter/2025/08/meteoriten-tillhor-upphittarna/)

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    In the question, the finder is the same as the landowner, so I don't see how this decision is relevant. Sue falsely claims that Bob found it on her land, just based on it being more likely because her land is larger. Commented Oct 2 at 20:04
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    @Barmar The point is that Sue has no case at all. Even if she talks somebody into claiming they saw Bob take it from her property, he STILL would be the finder/keeper. Now, this answer could do well in stating this more explicitly. Commented Oct 3 at 10:36
  • I saw no mention of "trespass" in the translation of that article - doesn't it apply for that particular case? Commented Oct 3 at 16:24
  • The saying that meteorite is different from rocks and come from space is disputable. There is no proof that we have have already discover all forms of rocks/materials on Earth. I will just call my meteorite rock. Commented Oct 8 at 15:42

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