Title plan (Scotland): the map extract that shows the extent of a registered title

A Scottish title plan shows one registered plot, called a cadastral unit, edged in red on Ordnance Survey mapping. The Ordnance Survey base supplies the physical context in black: roads, buildings, walls and fences. The red edge is the registry’s addition and marks the extent of the land in that title.

The plan never stands alone. The title sheet for the same property opens with a property section that reads, for a title registered since December 2014, along the lines of “Subjects cadastral unit DMB98765 14 Roman Crescent, Bearsden, G61 0ZZ edged red on the cadastral map”. The plan is the picture that sentence points at, and every tint or letter on it should have wording in the title sheet.

Take that Bearsden semi as the example. Its plan is one sheet at 1:1250: the house and gardens edged red, the neighbouring semi at number 16 in black outline, and DMB98765 in the heading. The prefix DMB is the registration county of Dumbarton, one of the pre-1974 counties the Scottish registry still uses for title numbers, so a Bearsden title carries DMB even though the council area today is East Dunbartonshire.

Start with the cadastral unit number in the heading, then find the red edge, then match each colour to a line in the title sheet. The register’s published guidance, as at September 2026, sets out these mapping conventions.

The tints yellow, brown, pink and blue are also used for servitude rights and title-condition burdens, so a brown strip may be a path on one plan and a right of way on another. The title sheet tells you which: a right in the plot’s favour sits in the A section as a pertinent, a burden on the plot in the D section. A burden that affects a specific area gets a cadastral map reference; one that applies to the whole plot usually gets none.

The red line on a Scottish title plan is only as accurate as the Ordnance Survey map beneath it. The register’s published guidance, as at September 2026, says legal boundaries on the cadastral map cannot be more accurate than the base map, and any inexactness within the tolerance Ordnance Survey publishes for the scale is discounted.

Those tolerances are up to 1 metre at 1:1250, 2 metres at 1:2500 and 8 metres at 1:10,000. Where the plan lodged with a deed differs from the Ordnance Survey feature by more than that, the registry plots the deed extent rather than the feature.

The registry records the legal extent of the plot, not the occupational extent, so a fence built a metre inside your neighbour’s title does not move the red line. Where a fence, a hedge and a wall run side by side, Ordnance Survey maps only one, so the red edge may follow a feature you cannot see from the garden.

The registry’s own online map carries a note that the boundaries shown are not a precise representation, and a title plan evidences the registered extent to the accuracy of the map, no better. Where an owner believes the map is wrong, the registry corrects it only for an inaccuracy that is manifest, meaning clear and beyond dispute, and that takes evidence such as historic deeds, a plans report and the neighbouring titles.

A flat in a Scottish tenement does not get a red edge of its own. The register’s published guidance maps the whole block as one cadastral unit, the tenement steading, with a single red edge around the building and its ground, such as the back green.

Each flat still has its own title number and title sheet, but the flat is described in words by reference to the steading. A third-floor flat in a Dundee tenement might read “Subjects part of cadastral unit ANG77120 edged red on the cadastral map being the eastmost dwelling house on the third floor” followed by the address. The plan you receive for that flat shows the steading, not a floor plan.

Exclusive pertinents, such as a cellar or a garden strip that belongs to one flat alone, are held as supplementary data on that flat’s title sheet rather than drawn on the map; shared areas stay inside the steading. For a new block, ground more than 25 metres from the building cannot form part of the steading and gets its own cadastral unit.

The owner of 14 Roman Crescent believes the new fence put up by number 16 has taken a strip of her back garden, and wants the plan to prove it.

1. Order the title plan for DMB98765 and for the neighbouring title, which carries its own number such as DMB98766. Both are cut from the same cadastral map, so the red edges should meet along the same black line.
2. Check for a black arrow at that line. If one is present it states whether the boundary runs along the inner face, centre line or outer face of the mapped feature, which is the most precise thing a Scottish plan says.
3. Accept the scale. At 1:1250 the map tolerance is up to 1 metre, so a fence moved 40 centimetres cannot be read off the plan.
4. Order both title sheets and read the D sections. A real burden from the original development may say who maintains the mutual fence, and a servitude entry may explain a brown or yellow strip at the boundary.
5. Photograph the old post holes before the ground is disturbed, because a surveyor will need physical evidence to compare with the registered extent.

What the plan will not do is give a measurement, and what the registry will not do is move the fence. If the plans and title sheets agree and the fence sits inside the red edge of DMB98765, that is the evidence a solicitor works from; the remedy is agreement or a court, not a document.

A buyer is looking at a farmhouse outside Callander, held under a title such as PTH45210 (a Perth prefix, because Callander sits in the old county of Perth), reached by a half-mile track across the neighbouring farm. The plan is at 1:2500, so the mapping tolerance is 2 metres, which matters less than whether the right to use the track exists at all.

On the plan the track may show as a strip tinted brown, or as a lettered area with coloured edging. The property section of the title sheet gives the matching words, for example “together with a right of vehicular and pedestrian access over the track tinted brown on the cadastral map”. Without those words a brown strip proves nothing, because the same tint is used for drying greens and paths.

Servitudes bind whoever owns the two plots in future, so the entry should also be checked against the farm’s own title, where it sits as a burden in the D section. Broken lines crossing the track are services, not rights. If a burn forms the far boundary, the registry’s warranty on the title sheet does not ordinarily cover changes caused by the water gradually moving its course.

Match the question to the record first. Most Scottish boundary questions need the plan and the title sheet read together.

Order the plan for both titles whenever a neighbour is involved. Both units sit on the same cadastral map, so an overlap or a gap between two red edges is worth knowing before anyone commissions a survey.

A new house on a Scottish estate gets its own cadastral unit once the disposition of that plot has been registered. Until then the plot is part of the developer’s larger red edge.

Say a builder holds a site outside Dunfermline under a title such as FFE60321 and sells sixty plots. As each plot is registered it is edged green on the developer’s plan with its new number in green. The buyer’s plan shows the plot edged red under its own number, with any shared path tinted yellow and larger common areas lettered.

Ordnance Survey mapping on a new estate may still show the field at registration, so the red edge may follow the deed plan rather than a built feature. If your new plot does not come up on our search, tell us the developer’s name, the plot number and the site postcode. We confirm which title the plot sits under before ordering, and the how ordering works page explains that check.

Properties never registered are a different case. A house that has not changed hands or been remortgaged since its county went onto the land register may still be on the older sasine register, a register of deeds with no cadastral map, and the Scottish registry says it may not be able to provide a plan for it. The Scotland page explains how to tell.