Subsoil Plot: Special Immovable Thing or Object of Public Property Excluded from Circulation?

The article is devoted to the study of the issue of the legal status of a subsoil plot under the current legislation of Russia and possible directions for its development. It is noted that the post-Soviet legal fate of land plots and subsoil plots developed differently, while the current legal status of subsoil plots is not much different from the rules of the Soviet period. The main contradiction of the current legal regulation is the classification of subsoil plots as objects completely excluded from circulation, with the simultaneous recognition of them as immovable things on the basis that they meet the criteria of real estate — they are characterised by an unchanging position in space and are objects of state property. The issue of formulating the definition of a subsoil plot as an immovable property is being considered, and the relationship in this regard between the license data and the mining allotment act is determined. The criteria for delimiting a land plot and a subsoil plot, the legal regime of minerals and underground structures are determined, and the essence of the right of the owner of a land plot to use the subsoil under this plot is established. Proposals to supplement civil legislation with norms defining a subsoil plot and its legal regime are critically analysed, as a result of which the author comes to the conclusion that the optimal solution would be to remove subsoil plots from the list of immovable things, considering them as things subject exclusively to public law regulation (public things). Only the abolition of exclusive state ownership of subsoil plots would make it necessary to extend the immovable property regime to them, for which they would need to be returned to the list found in Art. 130 of the Russian Civil Code.