While some readers may recall our previous Public Aye article on the topic or have been contacted directly by Registers of Scotland, some public bodies might still be unaware of the Scottish Government’s push to register all public land in Scotland in the Land Register by 2019.
This is part of the government’s aim of getting the title to all land in Scotland out of the old Sasine Register and into the modern map-based Land Register by 2024.
Land registration of your land ownership replaces bundles of old, sometimes handwritten, title deeds with a single typewritten certificate document that contains all relevant title information and an Ordnance Survey plan showing your area of ownership.
There are many benefits to land becoming registered, but the main ones are the ease with which the owner of land can be identified (instantly, online and for a very small fee) and the fact that definitive boundaries are clearly marked on the plan. Other benefits for landowners are: the increased convenience and cost savings in future sales and lettings; a clearer idea of the extent of their landholdings, possibly revealing previously unknown assets that could be sold to generate capital receipts) and the ability to create or better support online asset registers and estate management tools.
In addition the land registered title will have a state–backed warranty.
As part of this push to register title to the whole country, landowners are currently being given the opportunity to register their land voluntarily. This involves collating title deeds, assessing the quality of existing plans and possibly having new ones prepared, checking for encroachments and discrepancies with neighbouring titles (“underlaps and overlaps”) and sending the old title deeds off to Registers of Scotland for land registration. Depending on the nature of the title (and public bodies often have perse and complex landholdings) this could be relatively simple or very time-consuming. If landowners don’t register then Registers of Scotland have power to do this instead, leaving the landowner with difficulty in ensuring that their legal title is accurately registered.
2019 is fast approaching. Now is the perfect time to start the ball rolling. It is likely that registering some landholdings, and particularly those of many public bodies, will take many months, due to their size and complexity. The good news is that Registers of Scotland recognise this complexity and are keen to help.
If you would like to explore voluntary registration and find out more about what it would involve for your organisation please contact Lorri Pollock (0141 304 6009) or Stephanie Mackenzie (0131 200 7694). We would be pleased to visit you to explain in detail how the process works, what benefits you could expect and, if of interest, scope your title deeds to assess the scale of the task and provide accurate estimates of the costs involved to register your estates.
