Bought land historically adopted by council, but nothing mentioned on land certificate - Scotland

scottax · 4 August 2020 at 4:52PM

In 2014, I bought a house next to a dead end cul de sac. My house is freehold, and came without any extra land at all, no path or garden, just the land the building occupied was included in that sale.
The cul de sac led from a road owned and maintained by the Council. I contacted the Council to see who owned the cul de sac, they said they didnt own any of it, but had adopted the part of it closest to the public highway. The far end of it, was not adopted by the council it is rough and overgrown with weeds.
The cul de sac itself had been owned for several hundred years by a charity, and as such was on the old sasine register. I bought the cul de sac last year, and the new land certificate came through this week.

Image: https://us-noi.v-cdn.net/6031891/uploads/editor/33/2l7cp81c616h.jpg

I was surprised that there was no mention of adopted land on the land certificate, is this normal?
People wander down the cul de sac, to get to the riverbank, and to the far side of the park, I've even had people trying to repair cars on the rough ground near the riverbank, and am also bothered with flytipping.
I would like to fence the whole area off and use it as a private driveway/garden, but not sure if I can do that on the part that is adopted.
Any advice please ?

davidmcn · 4 August 2020 at 4:58PM

"Adopted" just means that it's on the list of public roads maintained by the council. It doesn't have anything to do with land ownership, and the underlying ownership is pretty irrelevant. No, you can't fence it off. If there's really no longer any need for it to be a public road then there is a procedure where the council can un-adopt it ("stopping up"), in which case the use of it would revert to you. But if other people actually make use of it then expect objections.