The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill (the “Bill”) was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 5th November 2025 and received Royal Assent on 16th December 2025 making it the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 (the “Act”). In a previous article we explored the implications of the then Bill for agricultural tenancies. Stage 2 and Stage 3 of the Bill’s journey through parliament have brought scrutiny of these provisions but only very minor changes. Here, we revisit the topics explored in the previous article to see how they now stand in the Act.
Tenant's right to buy
This part of the Act provides for Scottish Ministers to introduce regulations dealing with how tenants activate the right to buy, the registration process, how long registration lasts and how registrations may be challenged, varied or cancelled. The Act does introduce a requirement on a tenant seeking to exercise their right to buy to notify the Landlord of that intention, which was not in the Bill. As details of the regulations and the tenant’s notice will come in secondary legislation there is still a bit of clarity to come here.
Compensation for improvements
The changes to the categories of improvements for which compensation may be payable at the end of a 1991 Act tenancy signal a move away from prescriptive lists of improvements in favour of general classifications of improvement, illustrated by non-exclusive examples.
Where improvements need consent, the Act requires a prescribed form of notice to be given by the tenant and allows a 70 day period for the Landlord to object. If the landlord does not object within the 70 days, the Landlord will be deemed to have consented. If the landlord refuses consent, or if terms are not agreed between the parties within the 70 day period, the tenant can refer the matter to the Scottish Land Court (SLC).
New considerations for the SLC to take into account when deciding whether to allow an improvement include whether or not the improvement will have a positive effect on the efficient management of the holding or facilitate or enhance sustainable or regenerative agricultural production on the holding. A list of improvements that will be presumed to facilitate or enhance sustainable or regenerative agricultural production on the holding, unless proved otherwise, is added to the 1991 Act and depending on the improvement could require notice or indeed consent. There is also a general reasonableness consideration.
Compensation claims procedure
The Act introduces a standard claims procedure that will be applied by Scottish Ministers to any element of payment of compensation under a 1991 Act tenancy or any of the limited duration tenancies under the 2003 Act. Broadly speaking, the claimant tenant will have to give specified information including a nominated valuer to the landlord no earlier than nine months prior to a claim date. If the tenant and landlord cannot agree, the Tenant Farming Commissioner will appoint a valuer. The valuer will produce preliminary and final reports, with the final one being due at least three months before the claim date. Both the landlord and the tenant can appeal to the Lands Tribunal against the valuer's final report. Compensation will be due to be paid within two months of the claim date.
Good husbandry and estate management
This part of the Act is more about updating than overhauling the previous law. The concept of sustainable and regenerative agriculture is introduced into the 1948 Act under both good estate management and good husbandry, which is consistent with introducing the same phrase to the provisions on diversification in the 1991 Act. Other small changes include changing "eradication" to "control" of bracken, whins and broom and a specific reference to the health and welfare of livestock.
The Scottish Ministers may also prescribe activities which are to be treated as "conservation activities", a term that is loosely referred to in the 1991 Act as an example of activities which can be treated as being in accordance with the rules on good husbandry if certain conditions are met.
Rent review
The rent review provisions from the original Bill have made it into the Act largely unscathed. At the time of the introduction of the 2016 Act many were uncomfortable with the new rent review methodology. Perhaps, amongst other things, seeking to address such concerns the Act introduces concepts of rent payable on similar holdings and prevailing economic conditions in the agricultural sector as matters the SLC must have regard to when assessing rent, although the concepts of productive capacity, which caused much of the original concern, remains.
Game damage
The changes around damage by game introduced in the Bill were not as sweeping as some of the others and so it is not surprising that they also make it through to the Act with minimal change. They represent more of an updating and modernising exercise. The Act introduces some key changes to the existing law:
- claims for damage will extend beyond crop damage to include damage to non-agricultural crops, including trees, fixed equipment, livestock (including humane destruction of livestock to prevent further suffering or injury) and habitats;
- there will be no financial threshold to meet for claims to proceed;
- more specific guidance is given on the opportunities a tenant must give a landlord for inspection of any alleged damage.
Diversification
The 2003 Act first introduced the concept of a 1991 Act tenant being able to carry out non-agricultural activity on their holding, provided the correct notification and consent procedure was followed. The Act now also requires tenants to state any intended environmental benefit in the diversification notice.
If a landlord wishes to object to diversified activity they must show that diversification would substantially prejudice "the whole of the land comprised in the lease, for the purpose of sustainable and regenerative agriculture". This also appears in the 1991 Act with the aim of restricting when compensation may be payable to a tenant at the end of a lease and seems to be a higher bar for objections than previously existed which was to show that diversification would "substantially prejudice the use of the land for agricultural purposes”.
Stages 2 and 3 of the Bill’s passage brought scrutiny and consideration of these sections but no substantial modifications like we’ve seen with other parts. The Act, like the Bill, rather than introducing significant new concepts or completely overhauling the previous system, can perhaps be seen more as seeking to address issues arising from the passing of the 2016 Act and to attempt to modernise agricultural holdings legislation by accommodating concepts of sustainable and regenerative agriculture, activity intended to have environmental benefit and improvements that facilitate both.
Now that the Act has passed and been enacted we know that these are the provisions that will form the bedrock of the new system and it only remains to be seen what affect secondary legislation will have.
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