Over 93 per of Scots land titles registered to a Scottish postal address

JUST over 93 per cent of Scotland’s recorded land titles are registered to a Scots postal address.

Says the Scottish Government agency, Registers of Scotland, here, of the 1.89m land titles it knew about, as at December 31 last year, five per cent were owned by people or organisations elsewhere in the UK.

That left 1.4 per cent of the titles owned outside by people or organisations outside the UK.

Of the Scots titles owned by folk with an address in Scotland, 89.9 per cent were individuals, 5.2 per cent companies and 4.8 per cent ‘other’.

Of those titles owned within the UK, but outside Scotland:

89,330 titles were were owned by folk with an England postal address, 1,782 in Wales and 3,566 in Northern Ireland;
Type of owner: 67.2 per cent individuals, 27.9 per cent companies, 4.8 per cent ‘other’;
The cities, Edinburgh and Glasgow, were the most popular areas of Scotland for titles with an UK owner address outwith Scotland – with 11 per cent and ten per cent of titles, respectively;
Around two-thirds (65 per cent) of titles in Scotland with an UK owner address outwith Scotland were classed as being in urban areas of Scotland;
The most common UK regions with an UK owner address outwith Scotland were London (25.2 per cent of titles), South-east England (15.6 per cent of titles) and North-west England (11.1 per cent of titles);
Titles in Scotland with an UK owner address outwith Scotland represented 14 per cent of Scotland’s land area.

Of those titles owned outside the UK:

84.4 per cent were individuals, 11.1 per cent were companies, three per cent were trustees or limited partnerships and 1.5 per cent had a combination of owner types;
Owners had addresses from 165 countries and overseas territories around the world, excluding the UK. More companies purchasing or leasing in Scotland were based in Jersey than anywhere else, while USA was the most common country for individuals;
More than half (61 per cent) of all titles owned or leased by companies from outwith the UK were accounted for by four Crown dependencies and overseas territories: Jersey, Isle of Man, British Virgin Islands and Guernsey;
Ownership was the predominant interest for titles with an outwith UK owner address, accounting for 90.3 per cent of titles (24,341 titles). The remaining 9.6 per cent (2,594 titles), related to tenancy under long-term commercial leases;
The cities, Edinburgh and Glasgow, were the most popular areas of Scotland for titles with an outwith UK owner address – with 18.2 per cent and 13.2 per cent outwith UK titles, respectively;
Renfrewshire was the third most popular area, with around 10.7 per cent of outwith UK titles. Says RoS: “A contributory factor to this is the number of titles of parking spaces and storage facilities near to Glasgow Airport. This is an unusual occurrence that doesn’t appear to be repeated in any other local authority”;
The majority (80 per cent) of titles in Scotland with an owner address outwith the UK were classed as being in urban areas of Scotland; and
Outwith UK titles represented 3.3 per cent of Scotland’s land area.

Picture credit: Place Design Scotland

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