Buy land or buildings
Buy land or buildings
Surplus land and other property is offered for sale as part of our overall management of Scotland's national forests and land.
- Disposals will be undertaken in line with the asset management approach noted in our Acquisition Strategy.
- See our sales page if you want to buy land or buildings.
Notification of disposals to communities and other bodies
The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 gives communities the right to request to purchase, lease or for rights over public land. The Community Asset Transfer Scheme (CATS) sets out how Forestry and Land Scotland deliver the requirements of Act and how communities can make an Asset Transfer Request for any land or property on Scotland's national forests and land. We will continue to notify communities of any proposed sale of land before it is offered on the open market. Guidance on making a request is available on our CATS pages and the Scottish Government's Asset Transfer pages.
As an extension to CATS, we will give housing bodies and Non-Governmental Organisations the chance to buy land notified for sale before it is on the open market.
Current notifications are listed below. Communities also have certain legal rights to apply to buy any land for sale under the community right to buy provisions.
| Plantation/Property | Community Body/Council Notified | Date of Formal Notification | Newspaper Advertisement | Community Council to respond by |
| Din Moss, Blairadam Forest | Saline & Steelend CC and West Fife Woodlands Group | 20 Nov 2023 | Dunfermline Press & West of Fife Advertiser | 18 Nov 2024 |
Sales that are not notified
Unless there is known community interest, we will not notify sales such as:
- Sales of houses or other developed sites to the sitting tenant
- Sales providing public benefit, such as road-widening schemes
- Exchanges of forest or open land to rationalise boundaries or landholdings
- Sales of small areas of land to the adjoining owner.
Minor property sales
Read our policy on dealing with direct requests from neighbours or other private interests wishing to acquire part of the forests and land we manage: