Land Register of Scotland- Embedded Title Sheets

At the end of registration of any transaction the Land Register of Scotland will issue a record of the title at that point. It is an electronic snapshot. Clients may print this off and place it in a document file but as we inform them, the paper version, which formerly came in a nice yellow cardboard binder, is no longer important. It no longer represents their “Title Deeds”. 

The real record is maintained digitally by the Land Register and can change over time from the snapshot taken when the copy is sent to the client. 

From June 2024 onwards, those purchasers of a “part of” title (for example a new build or a first split of a block of flats) may notice and be puzzled by references to two title numbers appearing when they receive their copy. 

Even more confusingly, two plans will appear, one relating to the client’s own title, and another bearing a completely different title number. 

Perhaps less obviously if the client turns to the Burdens Section of the Title Sheet (the list of title conditions) it may be found that two sets of burdens appear, each referring to the respective two Title Numbers. 

These titles split off from a larger title are called Transfers of Part (TP), and the larger title is the Parent Title. 

This can only lead to confusion on the part of the recipient of such a copy title. Had it not been for the fact that we were asked by the Land Register to take part in a pilot of a new process a year ago I can guarantee that our solicitors too would have been bewildered so what hope would there have been for clients? 

The new process produces what the Land Register calls “Embedded Title Sheets”. Hard to explain without reference to some technicalities but the Land Register (whose presiding official is known as the “Keeper”) is under the following legal obligation. 

“The Keeper must enter in the burdens section of the title sheet where the right in land to which the title sheet relates is encumbered with a title condition—the terms of the title condition” 

In Transfer of Part cases the Keeper was faced with the task of working out which of the “burdens” (best explained as the conditions which must be observed by the property owner, the new term being “title conditions”) applied to the TP title and which to the Parent Title, or to both. 

As is well known there are large backlogs of work at the Land Register. Some complex titles (and there are many complex titles) can take over six years to process. 

Therefore, the Keeper has sought to save time and money by embedding information relating to the Parent Title in the TP Title Sheet- namely plans of both Titles and all the possibly relevant Title Conditions. 

Thus, in saving money the Land Register has increased the complexity of its output rather than simplifying what it produces for the public. Ideally although a Title Sheet must contain “legalities” it should be reasonably understandable by the public, without specialist explanation by solicitors. 

It might be expected however that unless solicitors are able to pre-emptively explain the reference to two Title Numbers, Plans and sets of Title Conditions this change will produce widespread confusion for users of information from the Land Register and potentially more disputes. The Land Certificate will be subject to unwanted interpretation rather than providing a true snapshot as was the original intention.