Land law puts croft at Arab sheikh's mercy

Published on Sunday 16 January 2005 00:09

ONE of the world’s richest men has won a bitter court fight with a Scottish crofting family who could now be forced off the land they have lived on for more than a century.

The MacRae family went to court in a desperate bid to hang on to their dead father’s Highland home, taking on their billionaire landlord, the Crown Prince of Dubai.

Despite claims that the late Daniel MacRae had bought the three-bedroom property a decade ago, the Scottish Land Court has ruled that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum still owns the croft.

The case was brought by Matthew MacRae and his sister, Janet MacKenzie, following the sudden death of their father, who handed over 75 to the estate owners under right-to-buy laws.

But the court has decided the deal was never properly completed.

It means the tenancy on the Killilan and Inverinate estates, in Wester Ross, could be open to other crofters. The future of the picturesque property is now at the mercy of the Sheikh, who controls the estates from an offshore holding company.

Mackenzie, who brought the action as executor of her father’s will, was unwilling to comment on the future of the croft but issued a statement on the result of the case which suggested it could rumble on.

She said: "As executor of my father’s estate I have a duty to protect my father’s assets. The land court has reached a decision which has a number of consequences which may require further litigation.

"I am advised that it would be inappropriate to comment any further at this stage as I need to protect the interests of my family."

But a close family source said they nonetheless feared they would lose their croft. "The croft has been in their family since their great-grandparents, but at the moment everything is up in the air," said the source. "The estate could give it to anyone.

It’s a big mess that’s been going on for years."

The case highlights the confusion that can occur over who owns Scottish land.

Matthew MacRae, 36, who now lives in Canada, said part of the problem lay with land ownership laws that allowed individuals to own huge tracts of Scotland.

He said: "The main problem was that the estate never produced the title deeds after they received my father’s payment and that still hasn’t been addressed. It would be such a shame now if the estate turned round and cancelled our family’s tenancy. But now they are in a position to do that. It is totally up to them."

MacRae added: "He [the Sheikh] can come into the country and buy vast estates, for what, to him, must be peanuts. He occasionally flies in in his helicopter with all his bodyguards. This case is not just about a small croft but about bigger issues about removed landlords who just want to make money."

The Scottish Land Court sat in the village hall of Dornie, Wester Ross, to hear the evidence.

The case was complicated by an application for cottager or ‘squatter’ status by Douglas and Pat MacKinnon, whom Daniel MacRae had allowed to set up a temporary home on the croft’s land.

They lost their claim and are now also waiting to hear whether they too will have to leave.

But in its 50-page decision the court is clear who is to blame for the mess and is strongly critical of Daniel MacRae for not ensuring the purchase had gone through.

The ruling says: "We conclude that, at the time of completing that application, Mr MacRae understood that although he had paid 75, submitted a plan and requested the estate to render account for its legal expenses, he knew full well that he had not completed his purchase, that something more had yet to be done.

"Mr MacRae failed to take up the opportunity to purchase and decroft his croft house. In doing so he failed to assign part of his croft to his daughter. We consider that it is for the estate now to resolve matters."

The Scottish estate is officially controlled by a Guernsey registered company called Smech Properties.

Its Edinburgh-based lawyer who represented the company in the case, Douglas Jaap, said the firm did not want to comment as expenses were still being settled.

Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum is thought to have bought the 63,000-acre estate for less than 2m more than 10 years ago.

He is also rumoured to have paid 70m to build a 30-bedroom mansion in Surrey.

The Georgian-style home has a 28-seater cinema, a marble-clad shooting gallery and five swimming pools set in 90 acres of beautifully landscaped gardens.

The Sheikh, a keen racehorse owner, is one of three brothers who rule Dubai. His family earns more than 1m a day from oil.

The Sheikh first fell out with elements of the local community seven years ago when he demolished cottages belonging to former estate workers and then applied for permission to raze Killilan’s historic 18-room hunting lodge.

More than 750,000 acres of rural Scotland held in private ownership are registered with offshore companies that avoid UK taxation and hide the true identity of the owners.

Title deeds of Highland estates show that more than 50 of them, accounting for 4.5% of all privately-owned land in rural Scotland, are registered to companies in tax havens ranging from the Dutch Antilles to Liechtenstein.