Progressive Property in Action: The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003

81 Pages Posted: 7 Sep 2010 Last revised: 8 Jan 2012

See all articles by John A. Lovett

John A. Lovett

Louisiana State University, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Students

Date Written: September 7, 2010

Abstract

This article responds to a material deficit at the heart of American property law scholarship. For years, property scholars have debated whether the right to exclude deserves to be the centerpiece of our property regime in the United States. This article seeks to transform that debate by introducing to an American audience a remarkable piece of property legislation recently enacted in Scotland. Part I of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 creates a right of responsible, non-motorized access across almost all land and in-land water in Scotland, private as well as publicly owned, for purposes of recreation, education and passage. This legislation thus reverses the traditionally robust, ex ante presumption in favor of a landowner’s right to exclude and replaces it with an equally robust, ex ante presumption in favor of the public’s right of responsible access. By introducing this new property right in Scotland and creating an entire property regime to contextualize the right, a regime that is much bolder, in fact, than has been established in England and Wales under the better known Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, Scotland has provided property scholars with a case study in property law institutional design that is unique in modern legal systems. This article will demonstrate how the LRSA reveals that it is possible for a property regime to promote the ends of human flourishing without necessarily sacrificing all of the efficiency gains and coordination benefits that flow from the common law’s traditional preference for rules of exclusion.

Keywords: Access to Land, Right to Exclude, Property Law, Property Theory, Scotland, Land Reform, Recreational Access, Trespass

JEL Classification: K11, K32

Suggested Citation

Lovett, John A., Progressive Property in Action: The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 (September 7, 2010). Nebraska Law Review, Vol. 89, 739 , 2011, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law Research Paper No. 2011-06, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1673225

John A. Lovett (Contact Author)

Louisiana State University, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Students ( email )

Baton Rouge, LA
United States

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