Community rights to buy review

Review process

In March 2024, the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands announced that the Scottish Government would undertake a review of all the existing community rights to buy. The review began in July 2024 and was conducted in four phases:

Phase 1

The initial phase gathered evidence and views on the improvements we could make to community rights to buy through informal discussions and evidence collection with stakeholders and community groups, to get their views on the current rights. We also issued a general request for evidence of issues and improvement, to allow anyone to contribute. We asked what works, what doesn’t, does anything need to be added, simplified, or removed?

This phase was completed in September 2024.

Phase 2

The next phase collated and analysed the feedback from these discussions, identifying broad themes. This allowed us to develop improvement proposals which consider processes, guidance, and legislative changes across all the rights in the round and as they relate to one another.

This phase was completed in May 2025.

Phase 3

This phase involved a public consultation via the Citizen Space website. The consultation invited respondents to complete twenty separate questions across eight substantive topics, with an additional final question at the end that allowed for any comments on anything not covered elsewhere.

This phase was completed in October 2025.

Phase 4

The final phase was an analysis of the consultation responses and the development of a final set of proposals for the consideration of Scottish Ministers, including the option of primary legislation where that is needed. This phase coincided with Stage 3 of the Scottish Parliament’s consideration, and passing, of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill – now the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 – and this has been taken into account in this review.