Titles in Scotland - History

Titles.scot - Resolving Scottish Title and Registration Issues

Understanding the history of the Scottish Land Registration

Milestones

  • Early Historical Ceremonies (1248 onwards):

    Sasine ceremonies marked the transfer of land ownership through the physical exchange of earth and stones.

  • General Register of Sasines (1617):

    Introduced as the first national land register, it officially recorded ownership deeds. This reflected the feudal system.

  • The advent of the industrial revolution and wider land ownership in the 19th century:

    Titles to Land Consolidation (Scotland) Act (1868) and Conveyancing (Scotland) act 1874: These  modernized registration with presentment books recording lands sorted by county and introduced search sheets, providing a chronological history of all transactions for a property and significantly improving the ease of searching and maintaining registers. It also laid a framework for modern conveyancing practices.

  • The Conveyancing and Feudal Reform (Scotland) Act 1970:

    This fundamentally changed the way that mortgages were secured in Scotland and started the move towards the abolition of the feudal system which would culminate with a reworking of fundamental Scottish landlord in the late 20th century and early 21st-century.

  • Digital Transition (1993-1999):

    The introduction of digitization and online access streamlined searches and registration processes.

  • Land Registration etc. (Scotland) Act (2012):

    This act significantly updated the legal framework, aligning registration with established property law principles and enhancing clarity and dispute resolution.

  • Ongoing Digital Enhancements (2007 onwards):

    Continued improvements included online deed registration and the use of electronic documents and signatures.

These acts and developments have collectively evolved the system of land and property registration in Scotland into a sophisticated, responsive structure, adept at meeting contemporary needs (Registers of Scotland).

The best laid plans…

The Land Registration (Scotland) Act 1979 marked a significant shift in the process of documenting land and property ownership in Scotland, transitioning from the Sasine Register, a deeds-based system, to a map-based Land Register. This transition aimed to provide clearer, more accessible records and stronger title guarantees. However, the implementation faced several challenges and delays.

Original Timetable and Delays

The original plan was to phase in the Land Register county by county, starting with Renfrewshire in 1981. The timetable anticipated a gradual rollout across Scotland, with the expectation of completing in the 1990s. However, this timetable was overly optimistic.

Problems Encountered

Titles.scot - Resolving Scottish Title and Registration Issues

Complexity of Transition: 

The transition from an old deeds-based system to a modern map-based system was more complex than anticipated. It required substantial changes in how property transactions were recorded and processed.

Titles.scot - Resolving Scottish Title and Registration Issues

Legal

Challenges: 

There were various legal intricacies involved in transferring data from the Sasine Register to the Land Register, particularly in cases where the deeds did not clearly define property boundaries or where there were discrepancies.

Titles.scot - Resolving Scottish Title and Registration Issues

Resource Constraints: 

The transition from an old deeds-based system to a modern map-based system was more complex than anticipated. It required substantial changes in how property transactions were recorded and processed.

Titles.scot - Resolving Scottish Title and Registration Issues

Right

to Buy: 

But the issue which undermined the whole project was a massive increase in the private stock caused by Mrs Thatcher’s right to buy sales.


See graph below:

Private Housing Stock 1979-2019

Titles.scot - Resolving Scottish Title and Registration Issues

In the 1980s nearly 200,000 houses entered the Scottish market and required to be registered.

By far the largest number of these was in the areas that had initially been scheduled for land registration being those in the west of Scotland (Renfrew, Lanark, Dumbarton and most importantly Glasgow).

This set back land registration for many years and created many of the problems in future years.


Some would argue that the Land Register never really recovered from the increase in the housing stock and 

would be plagued by delays which were only alleviated when the housing market was in recession.


As more properties move to the Land Register and with the introduction of electronic processing

As more properties delays in “standard transactions” have been resolved but where the property still sits within the old Sasines register of falls within several other categories delays are still endemic.