The Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 (asp 5) was a
land reform
Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution.
Lan ...
enforced by an
act of the Scottish Parliament that was passed by the
Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament ( ; ) is the Devolution in the United Kingdom, devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. It is located in the Holyrood, Edinburgh, Holyrood area of Edinburgh, and is frequently referred to by the metonym 'Holyrood'. ...
on 3 May 2000, and received royal assent on 9 June 2000.
Provisions
The act officially brought to an end annual
feu duties, a vestige of
feudal
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of struc ...
land tenure
In Common law#History, common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land "owned" by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement betw ...
, on 28 November 2004 (that is,
Martinmas, as the act required the "appointed day" to be one of the
Scottish term days).
Tommy Sheridan was one of a number of MSPs who drove this change through the Scottish Parliament. After that date, the former
vassal
A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain ...
of an estate was the sole owner of the land, and the former
superior's rights were extinguished. For a further two years, the superior had the option of claiming compensation; this was fixed at a single payment of a size that, when invested at an annual rate of 2.5%, would yield interest equal to the former feu duty. Because
inflation
In economics, inflation is an increase in the average price of goods and services in terms of money. This increase is measured using a price index, typically a consumer price index (CPI). When the general price level rises, each unit of curre ...
had eroded the value of duties, which had been fixed many years before, this payment was in most cases extremely small compared with the current value of the land.
In consequence of this change in the legal basis of land-holding, the act also reformulated the legal basis on which conditions on the use of land can be specified in the title to ownership of that land. Such title conditions (known variously as real burdens and real conditions in the prior law) were combined into "real burdens". Prior to the act, a superior could choose to enforce title conditions, or grant a consent or waiver (usually for payment) allowing the land owner to disregard the condition even if otherwise neighbouring property owners might wish to enforce the condition. Existing conditions which were enforceable only by the superior were abolished, and only conditions enforceable by the owners of neighbouring property or by certain legal bodies on public policy grounds were retained. Transitional arrangements allowed superiors who were also neighbouring property owners to convert the old title conditions to benefit their land and hence themselves as owners of that land rather than themselves as feudal superior.
Following this change in the legal basis for title conditions, the
Title Conditions (Scotland) Act 2003 was passed, reconstituting the mechanics of how new real burdens and servitudes could be created. These two acts, together with a third Act (the
Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004), commenced on 28 November 2004.
See also
*
Land reform in Scotland
References
External links
Legislation
Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc (Scotland) Act 2000*
Literature
* Andrew J. M. Steven:
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130407090145/http://www.ejcl.org/83/art83-5.html , date=7 April 2013 " in: Electronic Journal of Comparative Law 8.3 (October 2004)
*
David Sellar:
Farewell to Feudalism in: ''
Burke's Landed Gentry of Great Britain: The Kingdom in Scotland''. Edited by Peter Beauclerk Dewar.
Wilmington, DE 192001, pp. xix - xxi
Land reform in Scotland
Real property law
Feudalism in Scotland
Acts of the Scottish Parliament 2000
Constitutional laws of Scotland