Registers of Scotland (RoS) has updated its Land and Property Titles in Scotland by Country of Origin publication today.

The publication presents statistics on the country of origin of land and property owners and tenants in Scotland.

The statistics are based on Land Register land and property titles in Scotland, as at 31 December 2018, where the registered legal owner (or the tenant under a long term commercial lease) has provided an address at the time of the registration that is able to be classified to a geographic location.

RoS Accountable Officer Janet Egdell said:

“Of the 1.75 million classified titles within the Land Register as at 31 December 2018, both residential and non-residential, 6.0% (104,257 titles) related to titles for which one or more of the registered owners (buyers or tenants) had an address identifiable as being outside Scotland.”

Owner/tenant addresses by country of origin, as at time of registration, are shown below:

• 4.3% (74,564 titles) were in England
• 0.1% (1,828 titles) were in Wales
• 0.2% (3,748 titles) were in Northern Ireland
• 1.4% (24,117 titles) were outwith UK
• 94.0% (1.64 million titles) were in Scotland

With respect to the 24,117 titles in Scotland for which one or more of the registered buyers or tenants had an address identifiable as outside of the UK at the time of purchase (including UK overseas territories), 82.2% of the proprietors were individuals, 13.1% were non-UK companies, 3.4% were trustees, limited partnerships, miscellaneous bodies and corporations, and 1.3% were mixed ownership between companies, other legal entities and individuals.

Registered buyers and tenants had addresses from 164 countries around the world, excluding the UK. More companies purchasing or leasing in Scotland came from Isle of Man than anywhere else, while USA was the most common country for individuals.

More than half (61.9%) of all titles owned or leased by companies from outwith the UK were accounted for by four Crown dependencies and overseas territories: Isle of Man, Jersey, British Virgin Islands and Guernsey.

Of the 24,094 titles in Scotland for which one or more of the registered buyers or tenants had an address outside of the UK at the time of purchase, 88.8%, or 21,386 titles, related to ownership while the remaining 11.2%, or 2,708 titles, related to tenancy under long-term commercial leases.

With regard to the absolute number of titles, City of Edinburgh and Glasgow City are the most popular areas of Scotland for purchasers/tenants from abroad to buy or lease. Renfrewshire was the third most popular area, equating to around 12% of outwith UK title holdings. However, it is likely that some of these holdings may relate to very small parcels of land such as parking spaces and storage facilities near to Glasgow airport. A large proportion (82%) of the Renfrewshire titles relate to commercial leases. The next most popular areas are Fife (5.5% of title holdings), Aberdeen City (5.0%) and Highland (4.4%).

View the full Land and property titles in Scotland by country of origin report.

The Country of origin company report – a dataset containing information about all properties owned or leased in Scotland by companies outwith UK – was also updated and available to purchase.