Letter from the Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth, 18 January 2022
Thank you for your letter of 17th December, the contents of which I have discussed with the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland ahead of this response.
I can confirm that the position stated in the submissions made to the Public Petitions Committee by both RoS and the Scottish Government remains the same, namely that that there are no plans to amend the 2012 Act in respect of the relationship between the cadastral map and base map, and that the Keeper does not intend to request sight of death certificates when informed of the death of a registered proprietor as part of an application for registration.
Although the position itself has not changed, the EFW committee may be interested in the following updates:
(i) In the period since the petition was considered in early 2018, RoS have confirmed that no errors relating to parties being incorrectly classed as deceased have been encountered, and that, to the best of their knowledge, the error made by Mr Rosser’s solicitor remains the only example of such an error to date.
(ii) Mapping technology with RoS, and the way in which Ordnance Survey updates are transmitted to RoS, have changed since the petition was first considered. The Ordnance Survey base map is no longer updated on a ‘maptile’ basis, and instead, the map is updated on a feature basis.
Currently, Ordnance Survey make around 2,000 daily changes to the basemap, affecting in the region of 400 titles (not all of which will require amendment).
Developments in mapping technology within RoS have meant that these feature changes can be identified automatically (previously, a manual comparison of the old and new maps would have been required), and work is ongoing in automating changes to the cadastral map required as a consequence of updates to the base map in the most straightforward cases. These developments will ensure that updates to the cadastral map are made quickly, ensuring that the register provides up-to-date information.
I hope that the Committee find this update helpful, and I look forward to hearing what action will be taken in respect of this petition in due course.
Kind regards,