THE Scottish Land Court has issued its long-awaited decision on the validity of interposed leases in crofting and other questions referred to it by the Scottish Ministers and the landlords of Pairc Estate, Lewis.

The Court's decision considered questions following the application by Pairc Trust Limited, to buy part of the Pairc Estate under the provisions of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003.
The landlords, a company known as Pairc Crofters Limited, had granted a lease over the whole Estate to a related company called Pairc Renewables Limited, who had in turn granted a sub-lease over part of the Estate to SSE Generation Limited.
This sub-lease was to allow SSEG to build a windfarm on the common grazings.
A rent based on the installed capacity of the windfarm was to be payable to Pairc Renewables Ltd, but only £1,000 per annum was to be passed further up the line to Pairc Crofters Ltd.
The result of that arrangement would be that if Pairc Trust Ltd bought the common grazings they would stand to get only this nominal rent.
The Land Court has now decided that such leases are valid in the crofting context.
In coming to that decision the Court found that although the introduction of interposed leases into Scots Law had been intended to solve a problem in the commercial leasing situation there was nothing which disapplied it to crofting and no inconsistency between such leases and the provisions of crofting legislation.
In coming to its decision the Court rejected an argument that any lease of croft land required the consent of the Crofters Commission in terms of section 23(3) of the 1993 Act, holding that that section applies only to vacant crofts.
As to what a crofting community body can buy, the issue was whether a community buy-out put an end to all third party rights over the land in question, which may include not only leases granted but also servitudes.
The Court held that the purpose and effect of the 2003 Act was simply to put the crofting community body in place of the previous proprietor as owner of the land in question and that they therefore took the land not only with all the rights but also subject to all the burdens attached to it, just as it had been held by the previous owner.
However, the Court also rejected an argument by Pairc Crofters Limited that the lochs and watercourses on a common grazings are not "eligible croft land" within the meaning of the 2003 Act and cannot, therefore, be bought as part of a community buy-out.
Such an interpretation, the Court said, was at odds with how the term "common grazing" was commonly understood and would lead to results unlikely to have been intended by Parliament. Lochs and water courses were an integral, indeed necessary, part of common grazings.

Stornoway Today News Article  18.08.07

http://www.stornowaygazette.co.uk/news?articleid=3120490