This article was originally published after the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament but before the Bill received Royal Assent on 16th December 2025. Accordingly, references to the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill in this article are now to the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2025.
The Land Reform (Scotland) Bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 5th November 2025. In our previous article on Large Land Holdings, we explored the definition of Large Land Holdings as originally introduced. However, Stage 2 and Stage 3 of the Bill's journey through parliament have brought several changes to that definition. In this article, we will examine the definition as it stands and the possible implications for all interested parties.
Why is it important?
“Large Land Holdings” are the focus of the vast majority of Part 1 of the Bill. What constitutes a Large Land Holding is crucial to establishing whether the provisions of Part 1 of the Bill apply to you, which in turn determines the rights and obligations of all interested parties in a variety of situations.
Owners of Large Land Holdings must:-
A. put in place Land Management Plans and make them publicly available;
B. engage with local communities in drawing up the Land Management Plan;
C. consider reasonable requests from community bodies to lease land or buildings;
D. notify the government before taking any action with a view to transferring or selling land that forms part of a Large Land Holding; which in turn will allow the government to:
i. notify community bodies who are potentially interested in acquiring land forming part of the Large Land Holding
ii. consider the lotting of the land that is to be transferred or sold; and
E. not take any action with a view to transferring or selling land until authorised to do so by the Scottish Ministers (the lotting decision).
The new definition
The original definitions of a Large Land Holding are set out in our previous article.
The main changes relate to the area threshold and the how composite holdings are determined.
Thresholds are now all set at 1000 hectares and there are no distinctions between holdings on the Scottish mainland and those forming part of an island. It is also worth noting that it is reserved to Scottish Ministers to amend the 1000 hectare threshold through secondary legislation.
You might be forgiven for thinking that identifying a Large Land Holding is therefore simply a matter of establishing if a holding is over 1000 hectares.
However, due to the manner in which composite holdings are defined, it is much more difficult than that.
Composite Holdings
Establishing whether a holding forms part of a composite holding will cause the greatest difficulty from a practical perspective. Composite holdings are determined by reference to contiguous land and connected persons.
Contiguous land
Contiguous landholdings are those which have boundaries within 250 metres of each other. They may be separated by geographical features such as a road or river or indeed by smaller landholdings in separate ownership.
Connected persons
The previous proposed definition of connected persons was that owners of single holdings were connected if (i) they were both companies in the same group; (ii) one had a controlling interest in the other; or (iii) a person held a controlling interest in both.
Schedule A1 to the Bill now deals with the definition of connected persons and whilst it sets out to broadly follow the above, there are key differences.
Most notable is that the definition of connected persons includes reference to a person that requires to be registered in the Register of Persons Holding a Controlled Interest in Land (the RCI). This has two less-than-desirable consequences.
Firstly, is how widely that defines connected persons, creating composite holdings that might not be intended.
For example, if a holding of 600 hectares is held in trust for Beneficiary A and another holding of 500 hectares on the other side of the river is held in a completely different trust for Beneficiary B, and the beneficiaries are in no way connected, but Trustee C just so happens to be a trustee of both trusts but does not appear on the titles, then as it stands those landholdings would be a composite holding of over 1000 hectares and caught by the provisions of the Bill. Conversely, if Trustee C appeared in the titles, the landholdings would not be a composite holding of over 1000 hectares and the Bill would not apply.
The second consequence is how difficult (or indeed impossible) it may be to determine whether parties are in fact connected. As the test is that a person is connected if they require to register (as opposed to whether they are in fact registered) in the RCI, it is not possible to determine form a public register whether persons are connected and therefore whether a holding is part of a composite holding which might form a Large Land Holding.
More to come
A landowner must be able to tell with certainty whether their holding is caught by the legislation.
If that is not possible, landowners are left in limbo on crucial decisions relating to the management and transfer of their land. Breaches can occur unintentionally and without knowledge.
For the legislation to function properly and achieve its stated objectives it must be possible to establish beyond doubt when landholdings are caught by its provisions.
In summary, the changes to the definition of a Large Land Holding have the potential to create a great deal of uncertainty for landowners, community bodies and those seeking to enforce the legislation.
It is likely that a great deal of work will need to be done through secondary legislation before we have clarity in precisely what a Large Land Holding is.
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