Geologists Andreas Forsberg and Anders Zetterqvist found the stone in 2020 after a meteorite fall and left it to the Natural History Museum for storage. But the landowner, Count Johan Benzelstierna von Engeström, believed that the stone belonged to him since it had struck his property and the matter became a legal dispute.
Now the Supreme Court has made its judgment and states that the stone is movable property and thus belongs to the finders.
"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," writes the Supreme Court.
The geologists won over the landowner in the district court but lost in the court of appeal, which considered the meteorite to be immovable property and that the landowner had the right to it. The Supreme Court thus makes a different assessment.
"A meteorite differs from stones and other such material that constitutes components of immovable property. It is unique in terms of its properties and because it comes from space," writes the Supreme Court.
"The starting point should therefore be, according to the Supreme Court, that a meteorite does not constitute a component of the immovable property it has landed on."
The court adds, however, that this does not preclude a meteorite from becoming an integrated part of the earth and thus also immovable property.
