This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Land ownership guide promised
05/11/2001
The Executive is to produce a booklet of information
sources on land ownership in Scotland, as recommended in
the research report
Ownership of Land Holdings in Rural Scotland which
is published today.
The report follows a study into the nature of demand for
information about the ownership of rural land holdings and
how best to meet that demand. The booklet will be aimed at
community groups and other users to signpost the many
existing sources of information and how they can be easily
accessed.
Deputy First Minister Jim Wallace said:
"The Executive is committed to modernising the law on
land ownership and has conducted a thorough consultation
for the forthcoming Land Reform Bill which has attracted
many strong views.
"In this Bill, which we hope to publish later this
month, we will set out our proposals for responsible
access, community right to buy and crofting community right
to buy. The research published today shows that there is
already a lot of information available about who owns land
in Scotland, but it's held in a variety of places.
"The booklet we will produce will pull together those
sources and provide a one-stop shop so that those searching
for information will be able to find out where it is likely
to be held and obtain it quickly and accurately."
The research was commissioned from Environmental
Resource Management (ERM) as one of the recommendations
from the Land Reform Policy Group, set up in 1999, which as
part of its work looked at the information available on
land ownership.
Key findings of the research are:
- there already exists a considerable number of
sources providing information on rural land holdings,
as well as a range of organisations who collect or hold
land ownership data
- the main authoritative providers are the non-map
based Register of Sasines and the map-based Land
Register of Scotland
- users tend to range from the very regular users
looking for specific information on land (for example
conveyancing solicitors) to groups or individuals with
an occasional need to know about land ownership
- raising awareness of existing information provision
would be more useful than developing a new system
however a number of respondents saw the benefit of a
new database of land holdings
- the study found no clear rationale for the demand
for information on beneficial ownership, with some
respondents justifying it purely on a public right to
know basis. Problems generally related to lack of point
of contact for management of the land rather than lack
of information on beneficial ownership
The research identifies four main user groups for
information about land and clarifies what each group is
looking for:
- Solicitors and other professionals regularly
require detailed legally authoritative information and
are generally able to obtain it from the Registers
- Public utilities sometimes require information
about small areas of land for things such as roads and
pipelines. This can be difficult to obtain from
existing sources because of boundary ambiguities
- Community groups occasionally require information
about land to which they wish to gain access or about
whose management they are concerned. They find most
difficulty in accessing existing sources of
information.
- Academics may require information for research
purposes but are adept at finding it from the existing
sources.
The report considers that in the longer term, completion
of the Land Register which will involve detailed maps
showing legal boundaries will provide the best source of
information.
Mr Wallace said: "All counties will be transferred to
the Land Register by 2003. I agree that the completion of
the Land Register provides the best solution in the longer
term."
The Land Register of Scotland has been established over
the years since 1979 by entering new property transactions,
but will take many years to achieve wide coverage in rural
areas because of the slow rate at which property changes
hands.