A consultation on the future of the Land Court and the Lands Tribunal

Closed 19 Oct 2020

Opened 27 Jul 2020

Contact

Michael Green

Courts and Tribunals

courtsreform@gov.scot

Feedback updated 8 Sep 2021

We asked

Should the Scottish Land Court and the Lands Tribunal be amalgamated and, if so, should the resultant body be a court or a tribunal?

You said

50% were in favour and 50% against amalgamation.  An overwhelming majority considered that if the bodies were amalgamated, the resultant body should be an expanded Land Court.

We did

The Scottish Ministers have decided to amalgamate the Scottish Land Court and the Lands Tribunal for Scotland to form an expanded Land Court, subject to Parliamentary approval.

Results updated 8 Sep 2021

The Scottish Ministers have considered the responses to the consultation and have decided that the Scottish Land Court and the Lands Tribunal for Scotland should be amalgamated to form an expanded Land Court.  

Files:

Published responses

View submitted responses where consent has been given to publish the response.

Overview

The objective of this paper is to offer an opportunity for views to be gathered on the future of the Scottish Land Court and the Lands Tribunal for Scotland.  The main proposal relates to a possible amalgamation of the two bodies. This would be achieved by the incorporation of the Lands Tribunal for Scotland into an expanded Scottish Land Court.  

The consultation also seeks views on four administrative issues.  The first relates to issues about recusals by legal members from cases in both the Court and the Tribunal, the second to the necessity for a Gaelic speaker in the Court, the third is about the Lands Tribunal’s power to award expenses in title conditions cases, and the fourth has to do with the Land Court’s power to award expenses in certain appeals.

Read the consultation paper. 

What happens next

On completion of the consultation, the Scottish Government will analyse the results and publish that analysis.  

The results will assist the Scottish Ministers in decision making about bringing draft legislation to the Scottish Parliament in order to make changes relating to the Scottish Land Court and the Lands Tribunal for Scotland.

Interests

  • Law and Order