Land registry search in Scotland: title sheet and title plan for any Scottish address

A land registry search in Scotland starts from the postal address or the title number and ends with a PDF of the title sheet, the title plan or both. The register is arranged by plot of land, so the address identifies the record; an owner’s name is not a way in.

On the order form, enter the postcode or address, add the title number if old paperwork shows one, and give an email address. Choose the title sheet to learn who owns the property, what secures a loan over it and what conditions bind it; choose the title plan if the question is where the boundaries run.

We confirm that a title exists before anything is bought, then email the PDF within 24 UK business hours, or within 1 UK business hour on fast-track. The England and Wales documents, and how ordering works end to end, are described on our land registry search home page and do not apply north of the border.

Scotland has two property registers running side by side: the land register, organised around a map, and the register of sasines, a register of deeds kept since 1617. A property is on one or the other, and that decides what can be ordered.

The land register opened on 6 April 1981 in Renfrew and reached the rest of Scotland county by county over 22 years. A property on it has a title sheet, a numbered plot on the cadastral map and a title number, and the state guarantees the title it records.

The sasine register records deeds rather than titles, so a property on it is evidenced by the chain of recorded dispositions and securities, summarised in a search sheet. There is no title sheet, the registry says it may not be able to supply a plan, and since 8 December 2014 no sale or gift can be recorded there.

The quickest test is the date the property was last sold, measured against the date the land register opened in its county. A sale after that date moved the title onto the land register; a property held by the same owner since before it may still be on the sasine register.

Two later changes pull more properties across. From 8 December 2014 any disposition, the deed that transfers ownership, has to be registered in the land register; from 1 April 2016 a new standard security, the Scottish mortgage deed, does the same, so a remortgage with a new lender since then usually means a title sheet exists. Owners can also apply voluntarily, and the registry has moved groups of residential properties across itself, writing to the owners afterwards.

A house in Glasgow bought in 1990 is on the land register; a house in Inverness bought in 1990 and never sold or remortgaged since may not be. If you are not sure, order anyway: we check and tell you if no title sheet exists.

A title sheet is the register entry for one registered plot, in four sections. The A property section describes the land by reference to the cadastral map and lists rights that go with it; the B proprietorship section names the owner with the date of registration, the price paid and the date of entry; the C securities section lists each standard security and the lender; the D burdens section sets out the conditions and servitudes that bind the land, normally in full.

The property description begins “Subjects” and normally quotes the cadastral unit number, for example “Subjects cadastral unit KNR1187 Wester Lochan, by Kinross, edged red on the cadastral map”, followed by any rights, such as “a right of pedestrian access over the path tinted mauve”. Paper land certificates are no longer issued; since 8 December 2014 an owner receives a PDF title sheet instead. Our title sheet for Scotland page goes through the four sections entry by entry.

The cadastral map is the Scottish registry’s map of every registered plot, drawn over the Ordnance Survey base map so that walls, buildings and roads give context to the legal lines. Each plot is a cadastral unit with its own number, and the title plan is the section of the map for that unit, with the extent edged red.

Colours carry meaning. Pink tint marks ground that belongs exclusively to one title, such as a garden; brown and yellow mark paths, drying greens and servitude areas; blue marks the footprint of buildings and burdened ground; mauve picks out small areas such as bin stores.

A tenement is mapped as a single unit, the steading, so a flat’s plan shows the whole building rather than the flat. Our title plan for Scotland page explains the conventions and what the plan can and cannot settle about a boundary.

There is no separate land registry for Glasgow or Edinburgh: a search for “land registry Glasgow” is answered by searching a Glasgow address in the one land register for Scotland. What the cities have is their own title codes.

A title number is a code of two or three letters followed by a number. The code is the historic registration county, fixed before the 1970s local government reorganisation: GLA is the city of Glasgow, LAN the county of Lanark around it, REN Renfrew. Edinburgh has no code of its own; it sits in Midlothian, so an Edinburgh title reads MID followed by the number, and a number in this form on the order form settles which of several similar addresses is meant.

One section of the title sheet, or the plan, answers most questions about a Scottish property.

Four invented examples show what the record typically holds for each kind of property.

The Glasgow flat shows why a Scottish plan can disappoint: the red edge goes round the whole steading, and the flat is defined in words, by floor and position.

A property on the sasine register has no title sheet and no cadastral unit, so neither document on this page exists for it. What exists is a search sheet, listing the recorded deeds in date order with the owners, securities and price on each transfer, and the deeds themselves.

We cannot turn a sasine title into a title sheet, and we do not supply search sheets or copy deeds through the order form on this page. If an address has no title sheet we tell you before ordering, and you can email us so we can say whether anything else is possible. Once the property is sold or a new standard security is granted, first registration follows and a title sheet can be ordered.

A postal flat address may read “2/1”, “1F2” or “Flat 3, 2nd floor”, while the title sheet describes the same flat by position, “the westmost dwelling house on the second floor”, rather than by the postal flat number.

So when a flat does not come up in the lookup, tell us the floor and the position of the door from the stairhead. For a farm or a plot, give the nearest settlement and any name the property has had. Land without a postal address, such as a field or a garage block, cannot be found by postcode at all: describe where it is and what it adjoins, and we confirm the title with you before anything is ordered.

Scotland has 32 council areas, and none of them keeps the land register or issues title sheets. The county code in a title number follows the historic county, not the council area.

A council can still appear on a title sheet, as a proprietor or as a party to a planning agreement.