9 POINT CROFT HEALTH CHECK
This is a 9 point quick guide for crofters to check that the information held about you and your croft / crofts is correct (or at least that you know of any errors).
Before we launch in to that, a quick word about the registers.
The Register of Crofts (ROC) was established in 1955 and is held by the Crofting Commission. Until about 2017 we had to ask the Commission to send us copy entries for a particular croft but happily since 2017 the ROC has been available to view online (and I do, dozens of times every week). It is now a clunky online database and is not map based but it does contain much authoritative information and detail which the CR does not.
The Crofting Register (CR) was established in 2010 as part of the great ‘croft mortgage’ hope. Croft mortgages never came to pass but the CR did. It is map based and looks more user-friendly but does not contain the depth of information the ROC does. It is maintained by the Registers of Scotland.
For lawyers, the ROC can be likened to the General Register of Sasines and the CR to the Land Register.
Every croft (with very few exceptions) is already on the ROC. Since 2010, there has been a rolling process of registration on the CR. Once on the CR, croft boundaries are not easily changed once the 9 month challenge period has passed and so the process of first registration should be taken seriously (please don’t take the option of drawing on a hard copy OS extract supplied by the CR with a felt tip; that seldom ends well).
Introductions aside, if you are a crofter with a croft or crofts already registered on either or both registers, here are a few things you should look out for:-
Do your name and address appear correctly on the registers? Perhaps you have moved, married or divorced; even if none of those apply, but particularly if they do, check the registers to make sure the information is correct.
For tenants - are the landlord details correct? It was once unheard of for crofts and common grazings to be in separate ownership but that scenario is now very common. Check the registers for your croft/s and make sure the landlord you pay rent to (and please do insist on paying rent) is the same landlord listed. New owners are notoriously hopeless at updating the registers.
Have you registered your croft on the Crofting Register? If not, why not? Sometimes it is a race to the register - if there is a boundary issue at play and your neighbour registers first and the 9 month challenge period passes, you could be stuck with their version of the boundary.
If your croft is already registered on the Crofting Register, are the boundaries correct? Who did the mapping? Were they experienced in croft mapping? If you are an owner, do the boundaries match with your title boundaries? Have titles for any plots within or beside the croft been obtained and checked against decrofting directions and resumptions orders? This is important, particularly so because errors can only be rectified by either the original applicant or that person’s executor (or the Commission if they made the mistake).
Have your neighbours registered their crofts? Have they done so correctly? If the boundaries are not correct, are you within the challenge period? Did you receive a notification of the registration? Was there a laminated notice pinned up at the croft?
If your croft shares in a common grazings, what information do the registers hold on those shares and those grazings? The ROC has better information on shares than the CR so look there first. Does the shareholding look correct? What about the souming? You may think it doesn't matter but you won’t feel that way if a development comes in to view.
Is your common grazings regulated? If not they should be, otherwise rights in land may not be attributed to the correct person and could be lost.
Is there a grazings committee in place? It is possible for for a grazings to be regulated but without a committee and this can create loopholes. For example, a crofter applying for an apportionment on an unregulated grazings must send a declaration form the landlord of the grazings confirming the other shareholders and their share entitlement. A crofter applying for an apportionment on a regulated gratings with no committee in place need not do so. In some circumstances this could be material.
If you are considering purchasing your croft, consider first whether you might want to obtain an apportionment in the future. A crofter’s ‘right to buy’ extends to their croft land plus apportioned land which is contiguous with or adjacent to the croft. If the croft is purchased before the apportionment exists, the right to buy does not extend to the apportionment. So, best advice is to wait until any potential apportionments have been granted before going ahead with the croft purchase.
Be proactive in making sure that the registers are in order; you will be glad you did!
Eilidh
eilidh@camus.scot