Community Engagement Obligations and draft large land holdings guidance under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2025– Consultation paper
This consultation seeks your views to inform the development of secondary legislation and guidance to implement community engagement obligations introduced by the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2025, and guidance on what constitutes a large land holding.
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98 days to respond
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Part 2: Large Land holdings
If a person or an organisation owns a large land holding they will need to follow new legal duties in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2025.
‘Check if you have a large land holding’ draft guidance
These new legal duties will only be imposed on owners of large land holdings, therefore people and organisations will need to be able to understand if they have a large land holding.
A copy of draft guidance accompanies this consultation document
Once you read that guidance please answer these questions:
71. Now you have read the guidance, how confident are you that you would know how to identify a large land holding?
a) Extremely confident
b) Very confident
c) Moderately confident
d) Slightly confident
e) Not at all confident
Please explain your answer. In particular, we welcome any comments you have on the clarity of the guidance.
72. Do you have any comments on the examples used in the guidance?
Complex ownership patterns
The draft guidance is intended to help most people determine whether they may have a large land holding and cannot cover every possible scenario. Some people may need professional advice (from a lawyer or land agent) when ownership structures are complicated.
73. Are there any land ownership or control arrangements that are not currently covered in the guidance that you think should be included?
Definitions in the Act
The draft guidance is based on the legal definitions set out in the Act and can be updated by regulations. We don’t intend to make updates to these definitions other than minor updates to take into account recent changes to UK company law[12].
74. Do you have any comments on the definition of a large land holding in the Act?
Overlapping holdings
The guidance says that sometimes complicated patterns of ownership within an area could result in several overlapping large land holdings. This is where some land is included in more than one large land holding because the owner has connections to multiple people or organisations owning nearby land, and those people are not connected to each other. Example E in the guidance focuses on this.
75. Do you have any views on further guidance or support that could be helpful in relation to overlapping large land holdings?