ScotLIS gets the green light

New digital land and property information system

Deputy First Minister John Swinney has endorsed a recommendation that will give Scotland a comprehensive land and property information service.

The online service, named ScotLIS (Scotland’s Land and Information System), will allow citizens, communities, professionals and business users to digitally access information through one web source about land or property in Scotland.

The Keeper of the Registers of Scotland, Sheenagh Adams, has been tasked with overseeing the development of ScotLIS, working with the support of a number of partner organisations, and to have the first iteration, which will focus on the information necessary to support conveyancing, operational by October 2017.

John Swinney said: “There are 100,000 residential property sales in Scotland every year, with a value of over £15 billion. This vital part of our economy needs to be supported by easy, risk-free processes that support our ambition to be an attractive place to do business.

“The development of a new digital land and property information system is an important step for our digital first strategy, as well as playing a key role in land reform.”

The system will provide access to information held by a wide range of organisations. Its creation will remove the current barriers, confusion and extra costs sometimes involved with searching for land and property information.

Sheenagh Adams commented: “Registers of Scotland is well placed to take on the development of this new system. We have already made good progress on our digital transformation programme, which is focused on improving our registration and information services. We have a long track record of working in partnership and this will be key to the success of this new service.”

New plan assistance service

Our new plan assistance service is now available. It uses advanced geo-spatial software to translate information from sasine deeds onto a plan suitable for registration. Replacing the title investigation service, this new resource uses Registers of Scotland’s expertise to assist customers in relating often complex and multiple sasine deed descriptions to the current Ordnance Survey map.

The results can be supplied on paper or, as is more common, in a digital format suitable for geographic information systems (GIS). And, of course, the information we provide is guaranteed to meet our own deed plan criteria for registration.

Closure of the Sasine Register to standard securities

From 1 April 2016, the General Register of Sasines will close to standard securities. This closure means that property owners still on the sasine register will have to voluntarily register their title on the Land Register in advance of, or contemporaneously with, the registration of the standard security. To support this, Scottish ministers have removed the registration fee for the voluntary registration of the property; the only fee payable is the £60 to register the standard security.

We anticipate that this will bring around 5,000 titles a year onto the Land Register.

Keeper-induced registration: have your say

The consultation on keeper-induced registration (KIR), outlining our planned approach to using the new power to aid in the completion of the Land Register, is live on our website. The consultation paper seeks views on the proposed plans, which would see residential property in research areas added to the Land Register in the first instance, and seeks comment on other possible options for KIR.

Have your say at ros.gov.uk/consultations before 8 January.

A number of workshops are being held across the country in November to further explain the proposals for KIR and to provide an opportunity to ask questions of the team involved in forming the planned approach. If you’re interested in coming along, please email LRCompletion@ros.gov.uk