Placer claims and leases are referred to as "titles" or "tenure", a
right for some period of time to explore for and mine placer minerals.
The word "titles" has mostly replaced the word "tenure"
in the legislation, webpage and the MTO system, to refer to
claims and leases.
Any mining other than hand panning (with only a gold pan and a hand shovel) can only be done on a claim or lease.
Before 2005, a claim was acquired by staking - using wooden stakes with metal tags - and then recording the claim in the mining office. These old staked claims were generally 500 metres by 1000 metres (50 hectares). A small proportion of these claims were bent and were defined by 3 posts. Some of them had pieces missing where they would have otherwise overlapped an existing claim. Many of these old staked claims still exist - they are called "Legacy Claims".
Placer claims do not overlap. Where a legacy claim partially covers a grid cell, a cell-based claim in that cell only covers the ground not covered by the legacy claim. However, if the legacy claim expires, such a cell-based claim will automatically expand to include the entire cell.
A placer claim is maintained (renewed) - that is, held from year to year - by doing work on the claim, known as the "Assessment Work Requirement" of $20 per hectare - approximately $400 per cell. Alternatively, the owner can make a Payment Instead of Exploration and Development (PIED), also known as "Cash in Lieu" (CIL) of $40 per hectare - approximately $800 per cell.
There is a limit of 20,000 cubic metres of "Pay Dirt" that can be
produced per year from a placer claim.
Warning: This is a good example of where the advice in this web-site is for general guidance - its accuracy is not guaranteed. I don't claim to be an expert and there is no definition of "Pay Dirt" in either the Mineral Tenure Act or the Mineral Tenure Act Regulation. This being the case, inspectors in different districts could define "Pay Dirt" differently. If the exact definition of "Pay Dirt" is relevant to your operation, you would be wise to discuss the matter with the appropriate district office.I have discussed the definition of "Pay Dirt" with one of the district mining offices in about 2010. I was told that "Pay Dirt" is what is washed through the sluice (or other final recovery equipment); It does not include over-size (ex. boulders rejected by a grizzly) However, see the Warning, above.
(There is no production limits on placer leases - see below).
Placer claims may be "amalgamated" (combined) or subdivided
(the cells may be split into two or more smaller claims).
The number of cells may be reduced.
The areas are accurate for a 1-cell claim; the distances were measured
using the tool on the MTO mapping system....
Size of Cells
MTO grid cells vary in size. They are larger North-South than they
are East-West, and the further North a cell is, the smaller it is.
(They are based on latitude and longitude, and the lines of longitude
get closer together as you go North.)
MTO cell size is measured in Hectares (ha).
100 metres by 100 metres is one hectare.
| As Far North As | N-S (m) | E-W (m) | Size (ha) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 km South of Yukon Border | 464 | 350 | 16.24 | |||
| Atlin on Atlin Lake | 464 | 354 | 16.39 | |||
| Manson Creek in the Omineca | 464 | 393 | 18.24 | |||
| Prince George | 464 | 412 | 19.05 | |||
| Wells in the Cariboo | 464 | 419 | 19.41 | |||
| Lillooet on the Fraser River | 464 | 442 | 20.47 | |||
| Princeton on the Similkameen River | 464 | 453 | 21.02 | |||
| 1 km North of US Border | 464 | 458 | 21.19 |
A claim is turned into a lease by submitting an application using the MTO System and following a few other steps. In most cases, a survey by a British Columbia Land Surveyor will have to be done (at the applicant's cost). The cost of this survey may claimed as physical work to maintain the claim. See For More Information, below.
A placer lease is usually granted for an initial period of ten years. If justified by a mining operation, this period can be renewed.
A placer lease is a more secure form of title than a claim. It cannot be legally challenged except in the case of fraud.
The purpose of this approach is to make the location of claims and
leases clear and certain. No one can declare that the location of a
post is or was in a particular place so "you are on my claim". Since
the law came into effect, the location of posts makes no difference.
For More Information
For more information, see the following
Information Updates...
No. 6 Applying for a Lease of Placer Minerals (LPM)
No. 16 Claim and Lease
No. 31 Mining and Placer Lease Survey Procedure
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