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Scotland has two property registers, the General Register of Sasines, a register of deeds which is being superseded by the Land Register of Scotland, a register of title. There are some 2.6 million properties held between the two registers of which some 1.2 million are registered in, or the subject of applications to, the Land Register as at February 2005. This equates to approximately 46% of all properties that could potentially be registered in the Land Register.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive of Communities Scotland, to reply. Her response is as follows.

Glasgow City and the City of Edinburgh have had their business cases approved and now manage the development funding programmes in their areas. The transfer of programme management was implemented in Glasgow City on 1 September 2003 and in the City of Edinburgh on 12 July 2004.

East Lothian, North Lanarkshire, South Ayrshire and West Lothian have also submitted business cases to transfer the management of development funding in their respective local authority areas.

There are a number of different exemptions and reliefs from Stamp Duty and Stamp Duty Land Tax. The Scottish Executive has carried out no analysis of the impact of these reliefs as taxation is a reserved matter. Scottish ministers do however continue to ensure that Scotland’s interests on the issue of taxation, as on other matters, are placed firmly on the agenda in Whitehall.

The Land Register is made up of title sheets for each individual property registered and is held electronically.

Information from the Land Register is already available online. In 2001 Registers of Scotland introduced a service known as Registers Direct. This service provides information from the Land Register, and certain other registers, on the internet.

Subject to passage of the necessary subordinate legislation, Registers of Scotland plans to begin the roll-out of electronic registration – known as Automated Registration of Title to Land (ARTL) – from November 2006. This system will permit straightforward land registration transactions to be undertaken online.

The Keeper of the Registers of Scotland is responsible for the administration of the two property registers in Scotland. These registers are the General Register of Sasines, a register of deeds, which is gradually being superseded by the Land Register, a register of title. The Land Registration (Scotland) Act 1979 introduced the system of land registration in Scotland. The act envisaged the progressive introduction of the Land Register over Scotland on an area-by-area basis. This was completed in 2003, and the whole of Scotland is now operational for the purposes of land registration.

Transactions that induce first registration in the Land Register are set out in the Land Registration (Scotland) Act 1979. Generally, only a transfer of property for valuable consideration (i.e. a price) will induce the first registration of a property in the Land Register. Thus any property transfer involving deeds recorded in the General Register of Sasines that does not attract a price will remain on that register.

There is no set timescale for every property in Scotland to be held on the Land Register. Over time, as more properties held on the Register of Sasines are sold, the stock of properties in Scotland held on the Land Register will increase. The percentage of properties in the Land Register is presently rising by around 3% a year.

Registers of Scotland collates information on the average cost of processing each of the different types of application in the Land Register, and an average cost for all deeds that are recorded in the General Register of Sasines. There are three different types of application that may be made to the Land Register. These are:

First registrations of previously unregistered property;

Transfers of part of property registered in the Land Register (such as subdivision of that property by a sale), and

Dealings with Whole, which are transactions affecting the whole of registered property.

The average costs for each of these types of application is set out in the following table:

Application	Average cost
First Registration (Land Register)	£321.23
Dealing (Land Register)	£50.41
Transfer of Part (Land Register)	£246.07
Sasine Register	£27.03

Applications for the registration of mortgage transactions (including re-mortgages) in the Land Register are classed as Dealings and included within that average cost.

I have asked Angiolina Foster, Chief Executive of Communities Scotland, to respond. Her response is as follows:

Guidance on the preparation of local housing strategies produced for local authorities states that registered social landlords, as housing developers and providers, should be key partners in the local housing strategy process.

A local housing strategy should set out a clear investment framework for registered social landlords and for other partners and providers that would allow them to prioritise and target their actions and resources in support of their local housing strategy.

Where the local authority intends to introduce a Development Plan policy seeking to support the delivery of affordable housing, it should have regard to the local housing strategy and the local authority should work closely with registered social landlords, developers and other providers to ensure there is a common and shared understanding of the policy and its implications.

The work required by Registers of Scotland in relation to the Land Register derives not only from the abolition of the feudal system of land tenure in Scotland which was abolished by the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000, but also from the related reform of title conditions resulting from the Title Conditions (Scotland) Act 2003.

The main type of work in the Land Register that arises as a consequence of this legislation is in relation to the Burdens Section of the title sheet. The title sheet is the entry in the Land Register for an individual property. The Burdens Section sets out the various conditions that affect the property. These frequently include conditions arising from the feudal system of land holding. The legislation affects existing conditions and feudal burdens that appear in the title sheets of most of the titles that are currently registered in the Land Register.

The work required will involve the updating of over a million title sheets that have become inaccurate after 28 November 2004, because the legislation has affected entries in the Burdens Section. Certain categories of title conditions included in registered titles have become extinct.

All existing registered titles will be examined and those title conditions that have been extinguished by the legislation, removed. The work will be undertaken on a phased and systematic basis. An outline timetable for delivery will be published during 2005-06. The updating work will be completed by 2014, as is anticipated in the legislation.

The length of time that an application for registration takes to process depends primarily on its complexity but also on other factors such as the availability of supporting documentation from applicants, the completeness of neighbouring titles and whether there are associated applications which should be processed at the same time. The current totals of applications for registration in the Land Register that are in the course of being processed are as follows:

Timescale	Stock	Relative Intake
	65,828	177,058
6-12 months	30,691	180,920
1-2 years	38,779	333,623
2-3 years	17,485	273,630
3-4 years	9,103	238,406
4-5 years	3,052	188,864
> 5 years	1,973

Of the 14,128 applications for registration which are over three years old, some 72% are linked to other applications in that category and can only be taken forward when these preceding applications have been resolved.

Registers of Scotland are required to meet targets set by ministers as regards the average time taken to process applications for registration in the Land Register. In the past three years, Registers of Scotland has met all such targets.

In 2004-05 ministers set a target to eliminate stocks of domestic First Registrations over 1 year old during the next three years with a milestone reduction of 25% from the stock position at 31 March 2004 by 31 March 2005. Registers of Scotland expects to meet this target.

In addition, Registers of Scotland has specifically addressed arrears of older casework and all of the agency’s oldest casework is either in the course of being processed or awaiting supplementary information from the submitting agents. Registers of Scotland is on track to process all applications that are pre-year 2000 and not subject to factors outwith the keeper’s control, by the end of this financial year.

I refer the member to the answer to question S2W-14872 on 14 March 2005. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.