Who Owns Scotland? A Look at Land Ownership and Overseas Influence

The Scottish Governments has introduced a number of measures to try and answer the question “Who owns Scotland?”

The Register of Overseas Entities (ROE) maintained by Companies House came into force in the UK on 1 August 2022 through the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 and includes mandatory registration for any overseas company owning land in the UK. The Land Register of Scotland will not complete a registration for an overseas company unless their beneficial ownership is disclosed in the Register of Overseas Entities.

Separately, the Register of Controlling Interests in Land maintained by Registers of Scotland launched in April 2022 with a two-year implementation period. It goes further than the ROE and requires registration of any “associates” i.e. anyone who exercises control over property and isn’t noted on as the registered owner (unless their details are available on another public register).

Between the two transparency regimes, it should be possible to piece together a clear view of land ownership in Scotland.

Registers of Scotland have now published their “Country of Origin” report on land ownership in 2024. Out of 1,978,909 titles registered in the Land Register of Scotland, 92.8% of properties are registered to Scottish individuals or Scottish companies. A further 5.5% are registered to individuals or companies in the rest of the UK.

Only 1.4% of titles have a proprietor address outside the UK, the most popular overseas addresses being the United States, Australia and Hong Kong. Where titles are owned by an overseas company, 52% of those companies are located in either Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man – areas whose tax regimes have long offered legitimate tax-efficient ownership vehicles for UK property investors.

In terms of land use, 80% of foreign-owned titles are residential property and 80% of those are in urban areas (albeit urban titles make up only 2.2% of Scotland’s land area). The majority of foreign-owned titles are located in the urban areas of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Renfrewshire. When you include the rural areas, the total land area with a registered owner address outside the UK sits at 3.8% of Scotland’s total area.

The overwhelming majority of offshore-owned properties are therefore urban, residential properties. The properties in overseas control are counted less than 10% both by number and by area.

Registers of Scotland also note that the report is compiled by application data i.e. the purchaser’s stated address at the point of completion of the transaction. Where someone is purchasing a property in Scotland in order to move here either themselves, or e.g. to home a relative who has come here to work or study, that information is not reflected in the data.

The report simply presents a snapshot in time and doesn’t interrogate land management. A rural estate can be well run by an owner with an overseas address and a hands-on approach and land agency team; whereas any number of Scottish-owned buy-to-let properties or second homes can be left neglected. Ownership data itself does not tell the full story.

However, with the overseas registration requirements driven initially by economic crime transparency regimes, it appears from the latest report that control of Scotland’s land assets remains healthily in Scotland’s hands for now.

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The information and opinions contained in this blog are for information only.  They are not intended to constitute advice and should not be relied upon or considered as a replacement for advice.  Before acting on any information contained in this blog, please seek solicitor’s advice from Gilson Gray.