Land registration in Scots law is a system of public registration of land, and associated real rights. Scotland has one of the oldest systems of land registration in the world. Registration of deeds is important as it constitutes the third stage of the creation and transfer of real rights.

Following the enactment of the Registration Act 1617 by the Parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland, feudal grants and dispositions were required to be registered in the General Register of Sasines in order to give the proprietor right of ownership. These registration requirements survived along with Scots law's independence, following the constitution of the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Acts of Union 1707, and the subsequent creation of the United Kingdom in 1800 and 1922.

Today, public registration is still required in order to validly transfer real rights in Scots law. The public land registers are now entrusted to the Registers of Scotland (RoS), an agency of the Scottish Government tasked with compiling and maintaining records relating to property and other legal documents. The executive of this agency is known as the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland, often termed simply the Keeper, who is currently Jennifer Henderson. The RoS currently maintain 20 public registers relating to land and other legal documents.

History of public land registration in Scotland

After the introduction of the feudal system of land tenure in Scotland under the Davidian Revolution, formal ceremonies were conducted on the land itself by a sasine ceremony, where an owner gives sasine to another (from the Old French seiser, "to seize"). Dating from at least 1248, a sasine ceremony involved the handing over of soil or other symbols, publicly showing the transfer of ownership of the land from one person to another. The stipulated that the instrument of sasine required registration in order to create real rights:

"HIS Maiestie with aduyis and consent of the estaittis of Parliament statutes and ordanis That thair salbe ane publick Register In the whiche all Reuersiounes regresses bandis and writtis for making of reuersiounes or regresses assignatiounes thairto dischargis of the same renunciatiounes of wodsettis and grantis off redemptioun and siclyik all instrumentis of seasing salbe registrat . . ."

Few other European countries introduced any form of registration until the 19th century, and some areas in England and Wales had no system of public registration until 1990.Scottish Law Commission, Report on Land Registration (2010, SLC Report 222), page 1. Available: https://www.scotlawcom.gov.uk/publications/reports/ The result of the Registration Act 1617 was the creation of the Register of Sasines, which was one of the most advanced systems of land registration at the time in Europe.Scottish Law Commission, Report on Land Registration(2010, SLC Report 222), page 1. Available: https://www.scotlawcom.gov.uk/publications/reports/ The Register of Sasines operated by the public registration of deeds transferring land, such as feudal grants and dispositions, in order to make certain the right of ownership under the 1617 act.

19th-20th century

During the 19th century, important reforms were made to the Sasine process. The (8 & 9 Vict. c. 35) removed the requirement of carrying out the giving sasine ceremony.Infeftment Act 1845 s.1 The Titles to Land Consolidation (Scotland) Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c. 101) also provided that the instrument of sasine (the deed recording the ceremony) was no longer necessary, with the conveyance [contained in a formal document, the disposition] itself being registrable.

Repealed enactments Section 4 of the act repealed 11 enactments, listed in schedule (A.) to the act. CitationShort titleDescriptionExtent of repeal8 & 9 Vict. c. 31Heritable Securities (Scotland) Act 1845An Act to facilitate the Transmission and Extinction of Heritable Securities for Debt in Scotland.The whole act.8 & 9 Vict. c. 35Infeftment Act 1845An Act to simplify the Form and diminish the Expense of obtaining infeftment in Heritable Property in Scotland.Section Sixth in the Copy No. 2. of this Schedule.10 & 11 Vict. c. 47Service of Heirs (Scotland) Act 1847An Act to amend the Law and Practice in Scotland as to the Service of Heirs.The whole act.10 & 11 Vict. c. 48Transference of Lands (Scotland) Act 1847An Act to facilitate the Transference of Lands and other Heritages in Scotland not held in Burgage Tenure.The whole act.10 & 11 Vict. c. 49Transference of Lands (Scotland) (No. 2) Act 1847An Act to facilitate the Transference of Lands and other Heritages in Scotland held in Burgage Tenure.The whole act.10 & 11 Vict. c. 50Heritable Securities (Scotland) Act 1847An Act to facilitate the Constitution and Transmission of Heritable Securities for Debt in Scotland, and to render the same more effectual for the Recovery of Debts.The whole act.10 & 11 Vict. c. 51Crown Charters (Scotland) Act 1847An Act to amend the Practice in Scotland with regard to Crown Charters and Precepts from Chancery.The whole act.13 & 14 Vict. c. 13Religious Congregations, etc. (Scotland) Act 1850An Act to render more simple and effectual the Titles by which Congregations or Societies associated for Purposes of Religious Worship or Education in Scotland to hold Real Property required for such Purposes.The whole act.17 & 18 Vict. c. 62Heritable Securities (Scotland) Act 1854All Act to extend the Benefits of Two Acts of Her Majesty relating to the Constitution, Transmission, and Extension of Heritable Securities in Scotland.The whole act.21 & 22 Vict. c. 76Titles to Land (Scotland) Act 1858An Act to simplify the Forms and diminish the Expense of completing Titles to Land in Scotland.The whole act.23 & 24 Vict. c. 143Titles to Land (Scotland) Act 1860An Act to extend certain Provisions of the Titles to Land (Scotland) Act, 1858, to Titles to Land held by Burgage Tenure, and to amend the said Act.The whole act.

Subsequent developments

The passage of the Land Registers (Scotland) Act 1868 further reformed the General Register of Sasines, introducing a sorting system for deeds by the counties in Scotland. Search sheets, listing the deeds registered for a property, were also introduced to simplify the registration and search process. However, by this stage, due to the developments in cartography, many legal systems such as Australia and Germany began to use "title registration", or the Torrens System, based on maps of the land outlining plots. The General Register of Sasines, in contrast, relied on deeds alone and the extent of the land transferred was narrated in the deed. This made it difficult in practice to identify what exactly had been transferred, especially with deeds using historic measurement units. The General Register of Sasines began to appear outdated, and even by 1900 the debate had commenced in Scots law about its replacement. The final legislation to introduce a new map-based system was the (c. 33) which introduced a map-based Land Register of Scotland.

The 1979 act provided that each county of General Register of Sasines would transfer over to the new Land Register. The 'live' date for each county was:

Renfrew – 6 April 1981 Dumbarton – 4 October 1982 Lanark – 3 January 1984 The Barony and Regality of Glasgow – 30 September 1985 Clackmannan – 1 October 1992 Stirling – 1 April 1993 West Lothian – 1 October 1993 Fife – 1 April 1995 Aberdeen – 1 April 1996 Kincardine – 1 April 1996 Ayr – 1 April 1997 Dumfries – 1 April 1997 Kirkcudbright – 1 April 1997 Wigtown – 1 April 1997 Angus – 1 April 1999 Kinross – 1 April 1999 Perth – 1 April 1999 Berwick – 1 October 1999 East Lothian – 1 October 1999 Peebles – 1 October 1999 Roxburgh – 1 October 1999 Selkirk – 1 October 1999 Argyll – 1 April 2000 Bute – 1 April 2000 Midlothian – 1 April 2001 Inverness – 1 April 2002 Nairn – 1 April 2002 Banff – 1 April 2003 Caithness – 1 April 2003 Moray – 1 April 2003 Orkney & Zetland – 1 April 2003 Ross & Cromarty – 1 April 2003 Sutherland – 1 April 2003 The Seabed of Scotland – 8 December 2014 (this was only introduced following the passage of the Land Registration (Scotland) Act 2012).

Following the 'live' date for each county, it was no longer enough to record deeds concerning a property in that county in the General Register of Sasines. Instead a new voluntary application had to be made to the Land Register of Scotland. Over time the Land Register began to be filled as property changed hands, necessitating a new application in the Land Register. Under the Abolition of Feudal Tenure (Scotland) Act 2000, the abolition of feudalism also took place on 28 November 2004, ending the historic feudal nature of the Register of Sasines.Abolition of Feudal Tenure (Scotland) Act 2000 However, large swathes of land in Scotland still remained registered in the General Register of Sasines, and this, coupled with the working problems of the 1979 act, led to the Scottish Law Commission's Report on Land Registration (2010, SLC Report 222). The result of this report was the recommendation of the wholesale reform of the Land Register. The recommendations of the report were accepted by the Scottish Government and the was passed by the Scottish Parliament.

The publicity principle A chief feature of Scots property law is the publicity principle and the legal doctrine surrounding it. The publicity principle requires that in transfers of all property, there is a need for an external (i.e.: public) act in order to create or transfer real rights (or rights in rem). In Scots law, the publicity principle has not been analysed in great detail. However, the Scottish Law Commission have noted that the reliance on the public register provides certainty and security for the parties engaging in the sale of land.Discussion Paper on Sharp v Thomson (Scot Law Com DP No 114, 2001), para 2.14.

The rationale for the requirement of an external act is subject to academic debate but broadly is recognised that the publicity principles serves the purposes of: providing legal certainty of ownership without reliance on litigation; securing an owner's real right (or right in rem) by way of reference to a recorded public act; protecting third parties who may be unaware of any private agreements an owner may be subject to.

The race to the registers Historically in Scotland, it was common for sellers to grant multiple dispositions in one piece of land, often as an attempt to defraud multiple buyers.Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia, Vol 18, Property, Ch 13, para 601. The passage of the Registration Act 1617http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aosp/1617/16/contents by the estates of parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland was as an attempt to curtail this fraud by placing a registration requirement on transfers of ownership; allowing buyers to rely of the public register. Importantly, the Real Rights Act 1693http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aosp/1693/22/contents provided that dispositions would "rank in order of the date of registration." This legal rule, still in force today, gives rise to the concept of the "race to the registers" in which the disponee (commonly, the buyer following the conclusion of missives of sale) must quickly record the disposition granted to him in the Land Register, thwarting all other potential third-party claims to ownership. UKSC 41. The race has been characterised by the distinguished judge, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry as: