Registers are consulting to get all of Scotland on the Land Register within 10 years. To those of us who have struggled with complex first registrations, this sounds like impossible pie in the sky. Never fear, KIR (Keeper-induced registration) is here – what a magic wand this will be.
Perhaps I could get a retrospective wave of this wand over part of a first registration I had to give up on a few years ago. The house was on a wedge-shaped plot, and the boundary fence (erected with the houses more than 30 years earlier) had not been placed on the exact line of the wedge, leaving the property with a small wedge of back garden for which there was no title. The adjoining property had been registered without the wedge to which it had title but had never occupied.
The Keeper refused to register the wedge even with exclusion of indemnity for my client, unless I produced a conveyance in their favour by the last sasine owners. Miraculously, the Keeper managed to trace said owners, but all approaches were ignored – and who could blame them? Perhaps I should ask Registers to apply KIR to this wedge, but who would they register as the proprietor? Full land registration in 10 years – any bets?
Eunice M McConnach, consultant, Ledingham Chalmers, Aberdeen
