Hansard

As I suspect all members will do today, I begin by welcoming the reforms in the Land Registration etc (Scotland) Bill and the improvements that we hope the bill will introduce to the system of land registration in Scotland. Our country has one of the oldest public registers of property and land, which dates back almost exactly 400 years to 1617 and the establishment of the register of sasines, which is the original national register of property deeds. I was slightly worried when Mr Ewing seemed to suggest that he can remember the old system. A replacement for the register of sasines was introduced in 1979 with the Land Registration (Scotland) Act 1979. We hope that the passage of the bill today will improve further on that modernisation process.

Before I go further, I thank all those who have been involved in introducing and working on the bill: the Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism and his team; members of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee and their clerks; the researchers at the Scottish Parliament information centre; all those who gave evidence or responded to the consultation, including the Law Society of Scotland; and of course the Scottish Law Commission, whose original report and recommendations were the basis for this reforming bill.

There are a number of reasons why the bill is necessary and welcome. An effective system of land registration is important to any modern economy. To give an idea of that importance, it is worth mentioning that the Scottish property market, including mortgages and remortgages, was worth more than £24 billion in 2009-10.

The new land register of Scotland was introduced in 1979 to replace the register of sasines. It was gradually brought into operation and, since 2003, it has applied across the country. In fact, I note that Renfrewshire, in my constituency, was first to use the new register. Unlike the old register of sasines, which often only contained a written description of the legal boundaries to a property or a poor quality plan, the land register describes the property by reference to the relevant part of an Ordnance Survey map.

The land register is a register of title, not of deeds. For example, on the one hand, a person who buys land on a register of deed has to verify the seller’s legal title by examining the sequence of prior deeds, which is a complex task. On the other, if the land is on a register of title, it is only necessary to check that the seller is the person who is listed on the register as the owner. I note that the documentation accompanying the bill stated that that job could therefore be carried out by a paralegal, rather than by a trained lawyer, which means that the process should be much cheaper for all involved. I am not sure whether that saving has been necessarily passed on yet, but I look forward to that happening under the new system.

There have been big improvements, but until now a number of concerns have remained about operation of the new land register, which the bill will address. The main concern is that, despite the register’s having been operating for more than three decades, only 55 per cent of Scotland's more than 2 million property titles have been switched to the new register. In terms of area, that represents only 21 per cent of the land mass of Scotland. As members know, that is because land belonging to the Crown, local authorities, the churches, and some of the larger estates is rarely sold.

The bill addresses that concern and the other key weaknesses with four specific measures that are designed to ensure the eventual transfer of all property in Scotland to the land register, and the subsequent closure of the register of sasines.

The bill improves the law relating to rectification of inaccuracies in the land register, and operation of the state guarantee of title, which was criticised for being legally complex. The bill rebalances the law towards the true owner of the affected property, rather than the person who acquires the property.

However, the bill does not do everything. There has been criticism of the mapping system that is operated by Registers of Scotland. That issue has not been addressed by the bill, although I note that Registers of Scotland has set up a mapping forum with the Law Society of Scotland and other interested bodies.

I confess that I found the bill—or, at least, the informed briefings that have accompanied its parliamentary passage—to be very educational. I admit that I was one of those who thought that, following the initial missives, the exchange of keys to a property, accompanying the settlement, marked the transfer of ownership. I am reliably informed that ownership transfers in law only when it is registered in the land register. Of course, there is typically a delay between receipt of an application and its registration. Part 4 of the bill introduces a new system of advance notices that are designed to protect the buyer of the property from the risks that he or she is exposed to in the short gap between handing over the purchase price and receiving legal title.

The only major disagreement or, rather, disappointment with the bill is that it misses the opportunity to move the land reform agenda on apace. The Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism made the point at Stage 1 that the bill is not about reform of the law on property, but about reform of the law on registration of property. The trouble with that argument is that there are issues that are to do with registration alone and, in particular, to do with access to information and transparency, which would help communities across Scotland.

The minister, in rejecting Rhoda Grant’s amendment 1, suggested that the land register is sufficiently open and transparent. He argued that the point of the register is simply to establish or validate ownership. The argument that I and many others who have an interest in wider land reform in Scotland share, is that there are still plenty of murky practices and a great deal of obscurity about who owns land and property. The best way for us to end that unwelcome state of affairs is simply to shine a light on the matter. People and companies who operate openly and are potentially subject to wider public scrutiny are far more likely to act in the wider public interest than in self-interest.

I believe that we have a choice: we can simply allow the land register to be used by any and all property owners to secure their own interests, or we can use the register as a tool of public policy that is designed to encourage beneficial ownership. I am disappointed that we have not taken the opportunity to pursue the latter option, and I hope that the Parliament will have the opportunity to come back to and address that issue.

As many others are, I am particularly anxious that people in urban areas and not just those who live in rural Scotland become more aware of their own environment and exercise greater responsibility over that space. How many of us as constituency MSPs have been approached over the years about land ownership issues? Such issues include, for example, local eyesores or patches of ground for which no one seems to claim ownership and which become magnets for refuse and litter. Finding out who owns and is responsible for maintaining land in Scotland should be simpler and more straightforward. On that point, I am pleased to see the measures in part 10 of the bill that will make use of electronic documents easier.

Despite our achievements early on in this Parliament in abolishing feudal tenure, guaranteeing the right to roam and introducing the right for some communities to buy their land, Scotland still enjoys the most inequitable distribution of land ownership in Europe. I believe that there is a clear majority in the Scottish Parliament in support of further land reform, so I am anxious because today is a bit of a missed opportunity. Having said that, I am pleased to welcome the measures that the Land Registration etc (Scotland) Bill will introduce and I hope that they make a marked and welcome difference to our 400-year-old system of public land and property registration.

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