Land and property Titles in Scotland by Location of Owner at Time of Purchase from Registers of Scotland

Published: 28 March 2023

Registers of Scotland (RoS) has published its Land and property titles in Scotland by location of owner at time of purchase as at 31 December 2022 report today, which presents statistics on land and property owners and tenants in Scotland by location of owner address at time of purchase.

The statistics are based on Land Register land and property titles in Scotland (1.89 million titles) as at 31 December 2022, where the registered legal owner has provided an address at the time of the registration that is able to be classified to a geographic location. Please note that the owner’s address may have subsequently changed, and the figures are a snapshot or stock picture of all titles at a point in time, rather than a flow of purchases over the last year.

Additional analysis on the ownership type for titles with Scotland owner addresses and UK owner addresses outwith Scotland have been added into this year’s report.

Location of owner address

  • 93.4% Scotland; 5.0% UK outwith Scotland; 1.4% outwith UK

Owner addresses outwith UK

With respect to the 26,953 titles in Scotland for which the owner had an address outwith the UK (This category includes both UK overseas territories and Crown Dependencies):

  • 84.4% were individuals, 11.1% were companies, 3.0% were trustees or limited partnerships and 1.5% had a combination of owner types.
  • Owners had addresses from 165 countries and overseas territories around the world, excluding the UK. More companies purchasing or leasing in Scotland were based in Jersey than anywhere else, while USA was the most common country for individuals.
  • More than half (61%) of all titles owned or leased by companies from outwith the UK were accounted for by four Crown dependencies and overseas territories: Jersey, Isle of Man, British Virgin Islands and Guernsey.
  • Ownership was the predominant interest for titles with an outwith UK owner address, accounting for 90.3% of titles (24,341 titles). The remaining 9.6% (2,594 titles), related to tenancy under long-term commercial leases.
  • City of Edinburgh and Glasgow City were the most popular areas of Scotland for titles with an outwith UK owner address, with 18.2% and 13.2% outwith UK titles respectively.
  • Renfrewshire was the third most popular area, with around 10.7% of outwith UK titles. A contributory factor to this is the number of titles of parking spaces and storage facilities near to Glasgow Airport. This is an unusual occurrence that doesn’t appear to be repeated in any other local authority.
  • The majority (80%) of titles in Scotland with an owner address outwith the UK were classed as being in urban areas of Scotland.
  • Outwith UK titles represented 3.3% of Scotland’s land area.

UK owner addresses outwith Scotland

There were 94,678 titles where the owners address at time of registration was in England (89,330 titles), Wales (1,782 titles) or Northern Ireland (3,566 titles). With respect to the 94,628 titles that were included in this analysis:

  • Type of owner: 67.2% individuals, 27.9% companies, 4.8% other
  • City of Edinburgh and Glasgow City were the most popular areas of Scotland for titles with a UK owner address outwith Scotland, with 11% and 10% of titles respectively.
  • Around two thirds (65%) of titles in Scotland with a UK owner address outwith Scotland were classed as being in urban areas of Scotland.
  • The most common UK regions with UK owner address outwith Scotland were London (25.2% of titles), South East England (15.6% of titles) and North West England (11.1% of titles).
  • Titles in Scotland with a UK owner address outwith Scotland represented 14% of Scotland’s land area.

Owner address in Scotland

  • Type of owner: 89.9% individuals, 5.2% companies, 4.8% other

The full Land and property titles by location of owner at time of purchase as at 31 December 2022 statistical report can be accessed here.

The Country of Origin Company Report – a dataset containing Land Register information about all properties owned or leased in Scotland by companies outwith UK – was also updated and is available to purchase at £300 (plus VAT)