Community right to buy review: consultation

Annex A: 5. Uncontentious non-legislative and minor technical improvements to rights to buy which we propose to take forward

5.1 Guidance and Information

1. We will set up and hold a publicly available register of compliant community bodies. This will allow anyone to see if a group exists in their area.

2. We will improve the guidance available for community groups, owners, and relevant parties, taking into account comments received during the review. We will make the guidance clearer, easier to follow, and update it as the review progresses. There are several areas that we will expand on the guidance, including (but not limited to):

a. Compensation claim process for owners

b. What is meant by ‘sustainable development’

c. What is meant by ‘the public interest test’

d. What ’abandoned and neglected land’ refers to

e. For late applications, what ‘relevant work’ or ‘reasonable work’ mean, and what else we would expect to see from such an application.

f. What exactly is a “late application”

g. How much detail is needed in any business plans

h. The appeal processes.

3. Resources permitting, we will endeavour to increase the engagement with community groups and stakeholders, which had declined since COVID. This may involve more roadshows, attendance at community meetings and other stakeholder events.

5.2 Petitions and Ballots

4. We will no longer require community bodies to check the eligibility of residents in the community to take part in petitions or ballots that are part of the process. Checks will continue to be done by the Scottish Government’s Community Land Team. This may result in a small increase in rejected applications, if our checks show insufficient levels of support, but it will remove a step that is regarded as burdensome by community groups.

5. We will extend the validity of petitions and ballots from 6 months to a year.

5.3 Applications

6. We will take account of any plans that a community group already have in place in any local place plans, if signalled as part of their application. This will avoid duplicating work for community groups, by allowing them to refer to relevant sections of the local place plan.

7. We will amend the application form to make it more user friendly and to make it clearer what is required in each section.

8. We will refine the criteria that we use to determine that a group has demonstrated a connection with the land which forms the basis for the application.

5.4 Compliance

9. We will simplify the guidance on what the compliance requirements are, making it easier for groups to understand what is required.

10. We will remove the requirement for a community group to provide a map of their community and accept a definition only. The Community Land Team will check that definition for compliance and refer to the group on any issues.

5.5 Consistency

11. We will amend the Right to Buy Land to Further Sustainable Development to ensure that there is an end date for a Ministerial Decision (it currently provides a date before which a decision cannot be made).

12. We will ensure consistency across the various compulsory rights to remove confusion.

5.6 Late Applications

13. We will allow evidence of steps taken to negotiate a transfer of land to be a relevant consideration in a late application, rather than only steps taken by the community group to submit an application. This means that community groups who are focussed on negotiating with an owner are not disadvantaged due to negotiations breaking down.

14. Amend timescales for a late application to provide a more realistic expectation of the process required.