The community right to buy, twenty years on

When Part 2 of the 2003 Land Reform Act came in, the idea behind it was modest. A rural community that wanted a piece of land could not force a sale, but it could stand at the front of the queue if the owner ever chose to sell. More than twenty years later that first right is still in use, and the Scottish Government’s own overview of the rights to buy lists three more alongside it.

Registering an interest

The right works in two stages. First a properly constituted community body applies to Scottish Ministers to register a community interest in the land or building. The application has to show that ownership would bring sustainable development benefits to the land and the community, and it has to show support, usually through a petition. The government is plain that the right is not meant to preserve things as they are or to block development.

Once the final application is in, the owner receives it for comment, and a temporary prohibition stops the owner transferring the land while Ministers decide. An approved interest lasts five years and can be renewed for five more. During that time the owner may still develop or lease the land. What the owner may not do is sell it for value without first telling Ministers and the community body.

Timing matters. The government recommends sending a full draft first, which officials check against the mandatory criteria before the signed version goes in. A group that only hears of a sale once the owner has started to transfer the land can still make a late application, but the guidance reserves those for exceptional circumstances. If one is approved, the owner is treated as having already given notice, and the right to buy runs from the day of approval.

When the land is sold

That notice triggers the second stage. The community body has 30 days to confirm that it wants to buy. Ministers then appoint an independent valuer, who has eight weeks to report. The price is whatever the two sides agree, or failing that the valuer’s market value, or the figure set by the Lands Tribunal for Scotland if either side appeals.

An independent ballot of everyone eligible in the defined community follows, with the result normally due within twelve weeks of the valuer’s appointment. Ministers then have 21 days to approve or refuse. If they approve, the price has to be paid and the land handed over within eight months of the community confirming that it wants to proceed, unless both sides agree to extend.

None of this takes the sale away from the owner, who is paid the agreed or valued price. What changes is who gets the first chance to buy.

From villages to towns

Until 2016 the right belonged to rural Scotland. The 2015 Community Empowerment Act extended it to the whole country, urban and rural, from 15 April 2016, and the same Act inserted a new right into the 2003 Act. In its 2025 update on the Act, the government counted 44 applications under the community right to buy approved by Ministers since April 2016. It also described a review of all the rights to buy, begun in the summer of 2024, intended to bring them into line with one another.

The rights that do not wait

The newer rights are compulsory purchases, available whether or not the owner wants to sell.

The crofting community right to buy, in Part 3 of the 2003 Act, lets crofting communities acquire the croft land where they live and work. Part 3A, the one added by the 2015 Act, covers land or buildings that are wholly or mainly abandoned or neglected, or whose use or management is harming the environmental wellbeing of the community. Applications have been taken since 27 June 2018, and the government’s 2025 update reported that none had yet succeeded. Part 5 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016, open to applications since 26 April 2020, allows a community to buy land, or nominate someone else to buy it, where that would further sustainable development.

Each leaves a public trace. Part 2 applications sit on the Register of Community Interests in Land, and Part 3A and Part 5 applications on a separate register, both kept by Registers of Scotland.

The big estates

The latest change is aimed at the largest holdings. The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2025, which received Royal Assent on 16 December 2025, applies to land in a single or composite holding of more than 1,000 hectares. It sets out community-engagement obligations for such holdings, adds a route for a community body to register an interest in a large holding, and gives Ministers a say over whether a large holding is split into lots when it is sold.