Do You Own Your Highland Titles Land Plot? No .... Again

Another blog giving well informed opinion that the buyers of land plots from Highland Titles do not own them in any meaningful sense. This time by Paul Cruikshank a Law and Politics Graduate from Glasgow University @PAShanky

https://pashanky.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/highland-lack-of-titles/

"As we’ve said, the right of ownership is a real right. A contract can only give the right to ownership – a personal right of ownership does not exist under Scots Law. This has been confirmed in court [Burnett’s Trustees v Grainger being the leading authority on the matter]. Even if it did, what good would it do? If a personal right can only be enforced in relation to a certain group of people, how can this really be called ownership?"

"If I have a personal right of ownership against Highland Titles (which is the most I can possibly have under a contract of sale), what happens if someone else tries to move in on my square foot?  I don’t have any rights in relation to them – I’m not the ‘real’ owner. I’d be screwed."

"So what are Highland Titles actually selling? It’s fair to conclude that Highland Titles aren’t selling land. They can’t be selling a “personal right to ownership” in a square foot of Highland ground, because such a right does not exist. There can only be a ‘real right’ of ownership and they’re selling me a title which cannot be registered in the Land Register, and (as I hope is clear by now) what the Land Register says goes – so I can never get the “real right of ownership”. At most, Highland Titles are selling a right to potentially sue them for £30 at some point in the future."

Further Informed reading on the same subject

 http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/2015/02/naughty-step-low-road-edition/

http://www.scotslawblog.com/scots-law/scots-property-law-souvenir-plot-ownership-social-media-best/

https://basedrones.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/highland-titles-scam/

http://www.andywightman.com/archives/4152

https://loveandgarbage.wordpress.com/2015/02/25/what-is-the-difference-between-real-rights-and-personal-rights-an-introduction-for-non-lawyers/

https://loveandgarbage.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/i-cant-believe-its-not-ownership-or-the-curious-tale-of-highland-titles-selling/

https://loveandgarbage.wordpress.com/2015/02/25/some-frequently-asked-questions-on-ownership-of-land-in-scotland-and-souvenir-plots/

https://loveandgarbage.wordpress.com/2015/02/15/more-on-highland-titles-can-you-be-a-laird/

Council Of Scottish Clans And Associations Are Not Highland Titles Fans Either

The USA Council Of Scottish Clans And Associations have also recently made their feelings on Highland Titles quite clear, I don't think they are very impressed.

https://www.cosca.scot/02/highland-titles-hopefully-gone-and-soon-forgotten/

"Highland Titles: Built On Deception & Stolen Heritage Hopefully Soon Gone And Easily Forgotten"

"The entire scheme of selling wee plots of ground in Scotland to buyers who then entitle themselves with really offensive monikers such as Laird and Lady of Glencoe has been found to be faulty and open to unraveling."

"The people selling the wee plots (1′ x 1′ – you get the picture) are very simply con men, and not the particularly affable lovable types either."

Highland Titles Scam In The Daily Record

The Daily Record picked up on the recent Twitter storm and ran their own story, which is available online.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/revealed-highland-laird-wannabes-fooled-5201846

The Record calls it a "scheme" but there is little doubt about their opinion of the reality of Highland Titles' "plot sales".

"But thousands of people taken in by the scheme have actually bought nothing, the Record can reveal."

"Top property lawyers and the government agency responsible for keeping a record of land ownership have flatly denied that any land changes hands in the so-called “souvenir plot” deals."

I hardly think Highland Titles will be adding that to their press cuttings links!

Highland Titles Scam Exposed On Twitter By Real Lawyers

If you missed it, over the last couple of weeks there has been a Twitter storm where real lawyers and legal scholars challenged the claims made by Highland Titles. The main points of contention were whether or not buyers of Highland Titles souvenir land plots actually owned them, and whether or not buyers gained a title.

In the unanimous opinion of the lawyers and legal scholars, buyers do not own the souvenir plots sold by Highland Titles, nor do they gain any titles.

There is little point in me explaining the arguments as several others have already done so. I'll provide links to articles written by the lawyers and scholars involved and let them explain in their own words.

The unfolding Twitter events as related on The Scots Law Blog:
http://www.scotslawblog.com/scots-law/scots-property-law-souvenir-plot-ownership-social-media-best/

The unfolding Twitter argument as told by @MalcolmCombe. Malcolm Combe is a lecturer in law at the University of Aberdeen and adviser to the Land Reform Review Group.
https://storify.com/MalcolmCombe/buy-land-in-scotland-style-yourself-as-lord-or-lad

Article on the realities of land ownership in Scotland by @NearlyLegal - Giles Peaker is a solicitor and partner in the Housing and Public Law team at Anthony Gold Solicitors.
http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/2015/02/naughty-step-low-road-edition/

Article on the realities of land ownership in Scotland by Scottish lawyer @loveandgarbage.
https://loveandgarbage.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/i-cant-believe-its-not-ownership-or-the-curious-tale-of-highland-titles-selling/

Article describing why you won't be a Laird by buying a land plot from Highland Titles by Scottish lawyer @loveandgarbage
https://loveandgarbage.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/i-cant-believe-its-not-ownership-or-the-curious-tale-of-highland-titles-selling/

Highland Titles land sales demolished on Twitter as ‘legal bollocks’ on Commonspace.
https://commonspace.scot/articles/314/highland-titles-land-sales-demolished-on-twitter-as-legal-bollocks

If you bought a souvenir land plot in Scotland from Highland Titles and thought you actually ever owned it or gained any kind of title, isn't it about time you demanded your money back?

Daily Mail Lochaber Highland Estates Balmoral Photos Slip Up

The Daily Mail slipped up last week. Their gossip columnist wrote about Lochaber Highland Estates’ use of a photo of Balmoral to sell their ‘Laird of Lochaber’ product. Problem is, the photo was actually on a fan site, not on the company’s official website. We have no interest in seeing inaccurate stories published about Dr Bevis’s enterprises, and a friend of this blog contacted the Mail regarding the error.

Publication of an apology may be merited. Any notion, however, that Dr Bevis’s reputation has been damaged by the article, as his lawyers will doubtless argue, is laughable: In 2013, Highland Titles were caught red-handed by Private Eye and the Advertising Standards Authority linking in the press coverage section of highlandtitles.com to clones of newspaper websites where articles about Highland Titles had been favourably doctored. One article on the clone server featured a string of fabricated quotes from a Member of the Scottish Parliament, completely inverting the Member’s actual views on square-foot plot sellers (this article was not itself linked from highlandtitles.com; instead, a website critical of Highland Titles had been cloned and doctored to link to it). In another fake on the clone server, author data had inadvertently been left, revealing the initials PB.

Back in 2011, Dr Bevis was exposed in the Mirror over the Telephone Preference Register, a classic ‘copycat website’ censured by the Advertising Standards Authority, which used paid Google listings to snaffle unwitting users searching for the free official Telephone Preference Service. Amid public anger over copycat websites, the government has since intervened to stop Google displaying paid adverts ahead of listings for official services.

On such behaviour is Peter Bevis’s reputation founded. Against which backdrop, the Mail erroneously claimed that his website, er, used a photo of Balmoral in their marketing. Sacre bleu!

In fact, the reality of Lochaber Highland Estate’s marketing was distinctly dodgier than the Mail’s erroneous claim. We note as one example this archived page http://www.screenshots.com/lochaberhighlandestates.com/2009-05-05 inviting you to ‘buy a noble title’. Claiming they could sell a ‘noble title’ could have landed them in very hot water had this been acted on at the time.

Those of us with longer memories will recall Dr Bevis’s sales of £5,000 half-acre plots of Keil Hill using a photo of (no, not Balmoral!) Delliefure Natural Burial Ground, fully 100 miles away, accompanied by the misleading pitch that ‘... planning permission may be possible in the future and so the plots offer an interesting long term investment...’. How the claim that ‘planning permission may be possible in the future’ can be reconciled with Dr Bevis’s designation of the same land as a Nature Reserve and with Highland Titles’ sales of square-foot plots ‘to protect these conserved lands from ever being developed’ is beyond comprehension. Owners actually wrote about their plans to build retirement cabins and the like, and given the sums involved (one individual spent more than £16,000 on 3 plots, something of an achievement given there is no shortage of Hill/Rough Grazing land in the Highlands and the benchmark price is £100 to £1,000/acre http://www.ckdgalbraith.co.uk/land-management-review, some of the owners may be very upset when the nature of the misselling of this ‘interesting long term investment’ becomes apparent.

These fond reminiscences aside, we are pleased to see the Mail article has now been taken down. Although there was no possibility of the article damaging Dr Bevis’s reputation more than he has managed through his own efforts, it pains us to see inaccurate stories about his enterprises when the truth offers such rich pickings.

Highland Titles Conservation - How Much Income Actually Goes Towards Conservation Work?

Highland Titles proudly tout themselves as a "Conservation Company". From their advertising, press reviews and interviews etc., one obtains the clear impression that conservation is their raison d’etre, that it’s the reason the company was set up. The conservation aspect is what customers are buying into. But from the figures, you would be justified in wondering if it is principally a hook, and the true purpose of the exercise is making the tax-exile owners very wealthy!

Highland Titles are notoriously secretive and wholly unaccountable when it comes to publishing actual figures in relation to their income and actual spending on conservation work. Genuine UK conservation charities, by contrast, are required to make full accounts publicly available.

Now, thanks to Stephen Rossiter the Highland Titles sales and marketing director, and public publication of sales figures for their affiliate program, we can work the figures out for ourselves and see a very reasonable estimate of what those figures actually are,

In a recent radio interview with Huffington Post, apart from the utter garbage spouted by Mr Rossiter about Laird, Lord, and Lady titles, he does state quite clearly, 4:13 "over the last 2 years, we would have raised in excess of $250,000."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/06/how-to-become-a-lord_n_6280516.html 

That's in  Dollars, translated to Pounds that comes to around £80,000 raised per year over the last two years, excellent we now have something to work with. All we need now are the total sales per year and how much income on average each sale is worth. Fortunately, tucked away in a corner of the Internet unlikely to be found by consumers, we can find these figures from the Highland Titles affiliate program, neat!

 http://darwin.affiliatewindow.com/merchant-profile/4728 - I think it likely that shortly after publication of this post, this page will either disappear or the figures will be changed. If you are a bona fide journalist, lawyer, or government agency etc. I can provide a verified accurate copy of this page which cannot have been tampered with. (Yes the program information and traffic figures have now been removed from the affiliate page 22/12/2014) 

Program Information
Average Order Value  -  £64.36
Commission  -  15%
Avg. Conversion Rate - 2.95%

Traffic
Over 90k Monthly Unique Visitors
Over 250k Monthly Pageviews

To get a pretty good picture of the actual number of sales all we need do is multiply the Monthly Unique Visitors by the conversion rate.

90,000 monthly unique visitors * 2.95% conversion rate = 31,860 sales per year.

Multiply the sales per year by the Average Order Value, 31,860 * £64.36 and we get a total of £2,050509, that's over 2 million Pounds, or for our USA friends, around  $3,219,300, well over 3 million Dollars gross income per year.

So over a two year period, Highland Titles' gross income is around £4,101019, yes that is over 4 million pounds, of which around £160,000 is collected for conservation projects. So out of the gross income, only around 3.9 percent is collected for conservation purposes.

Can these figures be relied upon to be accurate? Oh yes definitely, they come out of the mouth of Stephen Rossiter the Highland Titles sales and marketing director during a radio interview, and from their own publicly published affiliate program data.

What does this mean? What it means is that your £30 purchase from Highland Titles, only results in around a rather miserly £1 being collected for conservation projects.

Put it this way, would you donate £30 to a charity if you were aware that only around £1 of that amount was actually going to be spent on the cause, with the remaining £29 going towards overheads and salaries?

Richer Sounds currently give 15% of their profits to charitable organisations, do they call themselves a "charitable cause company"? Of course not! Highland Titles on the other hand, collect a tiny amount of their income for conservation projects yet call themselves a  "conservation company". As with many claims made by Highland Titles, when looked at closely, the claims are more marketing hype than anything based on reality. By far the biggest slice of income generated on the back of the famous Glencoe name, where their land isn’t, goes to the tax free haven Channel Islands, and very firmly stays there.

There is another concern, what do Highland Titles class as conservation work? We know they spent money on a track to extract the wood from the commercial forestry operation (while claiming it was a cycle track!). We know they have built a visitor reception hut, a car park, an ornamental stone bench, and some paths for the comfort of visitor. The natural world has little use for any of those, for my money those are more for the comfort of visitors and advertising hype, rather than spending on conservation.

Equally, if they spend £100,000 acquiring land planted with commercial timber to “salvage” the land, is that chalked up as £100,000 of conservation spending given that the price paid mainly reflects the value of the timber (such land is of very little value apart from the timber), and they will recoup the outlay when the timber is felled? Other people buy these plantations as investments!

Going by their own figures, for every £30 purchase made from Highland Titles, it seems only around £1 is actually collected for conservation.

Is that really what you expected from a company whose proclaimed reason for existing at all is for conservation?

For comparison, here are some figures for UK registered charities who's accounts, unlike the hidden accounts of Highland Titles, are available for public scrutiny.

Figures taken on 20/12/2014

Small Woods Association - 75% charitable spend, so of your £30, £22.50 is spent on the cause.

THE Whitley Fund For Nature - 82% charitable spend, so of your £30, £24.60 is spent on the cause.
 
The Woodland Trust - 65% charitable spend, so of your £30, £19.50 is spent on the cause.

Plantlife International - 84% charitable spend, so of your £30, £25.20 is spent on the cause.
 

Thinking About Calling Yourself Laird Lord or Lady of Glencoe?

Since it's formation, Highland Titles Ltd, not a Scottish company but based in the Channel Islands, have been advising tens if not hundreds of thousands of members of the public all over the world, that it is a good idea to buy personal rights to a plot of land, (not even in Glencoe) off of them, and call themselves Laird Lord or Lady of Glencoe. As with many other misleading notions spread by these professional con artists, this does not stand up to even the slightest scrutiny.

Glencoe in Scotland is famous worldwide for two reasons. One, it is generally considered as one of the most breathtaking areas of natural beauty in the whole of Scotland. Two, it is the site of possibly the most heinous crime ever committed on Scottish soil, murder under trust, the infamous Massacre of Glencoe. This is when Scottish chieftains and members of the MacDonald clan were ruthlessly slaughtered without any chance to defend themselves, while providing food and shelter to their attackers.

Donald Alexander Smith was at one time owner of virtually the whole of  the land in Glencoe, without question the principal landowner. When made a peer and free to choose any title he wished, after initially considering taking the title Lord Glencoe, decided as a mark of respect to the slaughter which took place there, not to take that title, and instead take the title Lord Strathcona. We can see this from his biography.

http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/smith_donald_alexander_14E.html

"In the spring of 1897 Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain informed him that he was to be made a peer. When news leaked out that he had chosen the title Lord Glencoe, after a glen where Scottish chieftains had been slaughtered in 1692, a glen he had only recently acquired, colleagues prevailed on him to reconsider. He created the name Strathcona, a Gaelic variant on Glencoe."

So who on earth with any knowledge of or empathy for Scottish tradition, would recommend that it would be in any way appropriate for anyone owning personal rights to a miniscule plot of land in Duror, to title themselves Lord Glencoe? Not only is it wholly inappropriate and utterly disregarding of any genuine Scottish tradition, it is as Lord Strathcona was prevailed upon to realise, gravely insulting.

There could really be only two reasons why anybody would choose to call themselves Lord Laird or Lady of Glencoe. One would be out of ignorance of Scottish traditions and history, the other would be a quite deliberate attempt to cause offense.

Highland Titles continually demonstrate that their only interest in Scottish traditions is to manipulate them with half truths and fantasy in order to line their own pockets. In the process they have certainly caused unsuspecting trusting people to unwittingly insult families whose ancestors were slaughtered in the Glencoe Massacre.

And if you think Highland Titles is principally about conservation, you might want to have a look at this post where according to their own figures, it is demonstrated that only a tiny amount of their over £2 million annual income is collected for conservation, the really big slice going to their Channel Islands tax haven and staying there.

Please do not support Highland Titles.

Highland Titles Scottish Woodland Alliance Cycle Track Farce

It is interesting that currently Sustrans are apparently in discussion with Highland Titles about routing a cycle track over their land at Keil Hill ..... hold on, that's a bit strange, there would seem to be little point as it seems a cycle track has already been built at the expense of Highland Titles.

Let us have a look at what seems to be the only piece of work that the Scottish Woodland Alliance actually claim to have done on Keil Hill.  The construction of a cycle track over Keil Hill

This is the claim from their website at http://lairdswood.org.uk

It seems that this post has prompted the removal of the entire lairdswood.org.uk website, not to worry there is an independently captured screenshot of the front page here http://www.screenshots.com/lairdswood.org.uk/2014-01-28 

"In 2007, we agreed with Sustrans that they could route the Oban to Fort William Cycleway over Keil Hill.  By 2008 we learned that Sustrans had decided to leave cyclists on the road for this dangerous part of the route. Thus in August 2009 SWA built a cycle track at our own expense that crosses Keil Hill from the Salachan Burn to Duror Cemetary. This will prove to be of value both to the people of this small community and to walkers, cyclists and equestrians."

So, over 5 years into the cycle track's existence, let us take a quick photo tour that illustrates the gulf between the marketing hype, and the woeful reality.

First cyclists have to find the track. It doesn't appear as a cycle route on any maps that I can find. This is the view as you travel South on the A828 (no, it's not the tarmac strip on the right; it's behind the farm gate on the left)

A close up view of the entrance and signage, not exactly inviting. You'd think they didn't want anyone to use it?

 This section of the access is overgrown  with dense grass. Cycles have to come through this section, so exactly how much cycle or any other traffic can there have been?

 

These stepping stones are also part of the route! This is going to take road bikes off the A828, remember?

At last we arrive at something which might be described as some kind of track, a section specially constructed in 2009. Rough doesn't begin to describe it. Wholly unsuitable for road bikes. Suitable for logging and 4x4 access to the half-acre plots, though. Does anybody still think this was constructed as a cycle track for road bikes to take them off of the A828?

The thought that this was constructed as any kind of cycle track for road bikes to take cycle traffic off the main A828 road is obviously utterly farcical.

It seems to me a much more likely reason for the construction is for the extraction of the commercially planted timber when it matures. In case you were unaware, the approximately 220 acre Keil Hill estate comprises roughly half  commercial forest (leaving only 110 or so acres for the Highland Titles Nature Reserve), planted with government grants.

Highland Titles Nature Reserve Planning Application False Statements

You would think that any reputable company when applying for planning permission for a building of any kind would tell the truth to the local council planning department about the purpose of the planned building, yes?

Not so with Highland Titles, the rules it seems do not apply to them, and false statements regarding the purpose of a building on the Highland Titles Nature Reserve were presented to the Highland Council planning department.

The planning application for what Highland Titles currently describes variously as their Rangers Hut or visitor reception, actually described the purpose of the building as "Storage for machinery for commercial forestry" in the planning application to Highland Council.

The entire planning application can be seen here .....

http://wam.highland.gov.uk/wam/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=MUTATPIH7R000

No mention of rangers huts, visitor reception, electricity supply, water supply, or toilets for visitors is there ?

The application was made by a Mr Robert Wilson, who is or was (please correct me if I'm wrong), the manager of the Bevis family holiday letting business at Tulloch Farm.

Then there is the matter of the modifications to the entrance from the main A828 road for their newly constructed car park. I can find nothing in council records which would indicate that these modifications have been authorised.

I understand that Highland Council have been made aware of these concerns, but I'm informed have chosen not to take any action.

It certainly makes me wonder if there is something distinctly smelly going on here. An unauthorised development complete with an illegal entrance to and from a main road intended to be used by members of the public, I'd expect Highland Council to be more than a little concerned, but apparently they are not .... I find that more than a little strange.

If you are involved in any type of accident at this entrance, or indeed in the "Rangers Hut", you might want to contact the Highland Council and ask them for the authorisation paperwork for these developments. If they cannot supply the relevant documents I'd think you might have a very good case for taking legal action against both Highland Council and Highland Titles.

If Highland Titles are prepared to cause false statements to be made to the planning authorities, does it not seem quite likely that an awful lot of their other claims might also be false?

Clan Donald Worldwide Are Not Highland Titles Supporters Then!

Clan Donald Worldwide on Facebook, a group with over 1000 members, have included in their membership rules, that supporting Highland Titles is not compatible with membership of the Clan Donald Worldwide group.

https://www.facebook.com/download/595308380577699/GroupPolicy-HighlandTitles-01a.pdf

Some quotations from the document:

"This group of charlatans, operating form Alderney in the Channel Islands, and with no real connection to Scotland except what they can charm out of innocent and unsuspecting people, who just want to celebrate their heritage, have to be stopped. I cant do it on my own, and others have met some unbelievable challenges in the past. Some have been vilified, others reported to Facebook. Fake Fb accounts have been setup and identity theft has been practiced to post stuff that leaves honest people looking like bad rubbish. So, when I post this, I expect to get some hassle. Hey ho. Our friends in Glencoe are extremely upset by this company trading upon their local and heritage identity.

The first thing I can do is this:

I declare that association with Highland Titles - Glencoe Estates, in any of their guises, is incompatible with membership of CDWw."

"ANYBODY WHO IS IN THE CLAN DONALD WORLDWIDE GROUP, and who is found to have an active 'like' on the Glencoe Highland Titles Fb page, or who shares their pictures, in the group or elsewhere, will be reminded of this document and asked to read it. If they have not seen fit to discontinue their support for this odious organisation, they WILL BE REMOVED FROM THE GROUP"

Update - The Press And Journal newspaper covered this story. Rather oddly the online version of the story about Highland Titles has been removed from the Press And Journal website. I can think of two reasons for this, either Highland Titles have threatened legal action and the newspaper is reluctant to get involved in a costly legal battle even if they win the case. Or Highland Titles have contacted the Press And Journal and related some cock and bull story about the character of Mr MacDonald the administrator of the Facebook page and it has been withdrawn "just in case". Such is the style and nasty nature of Highland Titles, I do hope that the Press And Journal will publish an explanation of this, though I seriously doubt that will ever happen.

Not that it really matters, I have a copy of the text of the article and will put up a scanned copy of the physical newspaper when I get a minute.

Meanwhile here are the important quotations from the article, this is not the full article.

"Press And Journal 10 September 2014

A Scottish clan has accused a company of “trading upon the misery and carnage” of an infamous massacre by selling plots of land that give the impression of being in Glencoe.

Clan Donald Worldwide (CDWw) has warned its members to have nothing to do with the company, Highland Titles. And it now states in its membership rules that anyone who fails to heed this advice will be excluded.

The clan points out that the plots being offered for sale – which range from £29.99 for 1sq ft to £499.99 for 1,000sq ft – are not even in Glencoe.

Chas Mac Donald, of CDWw, has stated to members: “Their operation is not based in Glencoe. It is a good distance away, in Duror and Appin. They are trading upon the misery and carnage that was the Massacre of Glencoe.

He says they are taking advantage of “innocent and unsuspecting people, who just want to celebrate their heritage”.

Mr Mac Donald declared that association with Highland Titles – Glencoe Estates, in any of its guises, was incompatible with membership of CDWw.

He wrote: “Anybody who is in the Clan Donald Worldwide group and who is found to have an active ‘like’ on the Glencoe Highland Titles Facebook page, or who shares their pictures, in the group or elsewhere, will be reminded of this document and asked to read it. If they have not seen fit to discontinue their support for this odious organisation, they will be removed from the group. ""