Britain's Queen Elizabeth has reminded residents the Duchy of Lancaster has the right to dig up minerals beneath their homes.
Thousands of people have been sent letters telling them the Royal Family has the right to dig for gold under their properties, and requesting them to alter their deeds to reflect this.
About 2,500 people in Raunds and Irchester in Northamptonshire received the letters.
Mary Richardson has lived in her house in Raunds for 44 years and said she was initially "alarmed" by the letter,
She told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: "It sets out the fact that the Duchy of Lancaster has the right to minerals, etc, under your land. Even though you think you own your own little bit of England, you only actually own the surface land.
"I've had to read it through quite a few times and at first I was a bit alarmed about it."
The Duchy council said they had sent the letters because they had to register their rights to minerals between properties because of an October deadline set by the land registry.
Nathan Thompson, clerk of the Duchy council, said: "The Duchy of Lancaster has owned these manorial mineral rights for many centuries and is having to register these rights with the Land Registry in order to preserve them for the future because of the change in legislation."
In November, the Prince of Wales was accused of using "bully tactics" after similar letters were sent to 1,600 residents of Stoke Climsland in Cornwall.
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