Prices paid for large estates not being disclosed on official register, land reform advocates say
Land reform campaigners are alarmed at the increasing use of a legal loophole that allows landowners to conceal the price paid for Highland estates from the public register.
Andy Wightman, a land reform analyst, said the loophole meant the prices paid in more than £300m-worth of Highland property transactions were not disclosed on the register.
Discovery Land Company, an Arizona-based luxury resort operator building a Highland resort at Taymouth in Perthshire, used the mechanism when it paid £21.4m in 2022 for the adjacent Glenlyon estate, famous for its hill walks and deer stalking.
Wightman’s latest sales survey reports that Oxygen Conservation, the “capitalist” rewilding firm aiming to be the UK’s largest private landowner, also used the mechanism to withhold the fact it paid £42.75m for two of its Scottish estates from the public land register.
