Commentary on Sections Overview of sections 43 to 45: prescriptive claimants Section 44: Provisional entries on title sheet
124.This section provides that while a person is a prescriptive claimant, entries relating to the rights they would acquire were the prescriptive period to run successfully are to be marked as provisional. Entries relating to deeds granted by or against a prescriptive claimant are to be similarly marked. This section deals with first registrations and deeds affecting registered plots.
125.Subsection (2) provides that when the requirements in section 1 of the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 have been met, the person’s title is no longer provisional as they have become the owner in law of the land in question. Accordingly, the Keeper is to remove the provisional marking. This section should be read with the amendments made to the 1973 Act contained in paragraph 18 of schedule 5, in particular sub-paragraph (4).
126.Subsection (3) ensures that provisional markings on title sheets confer no real rights.
127.Where a prescriptive claimant’s name is entered on the proprietorship section of a title sheet and the Keeper knows who the underlying owner of the land is, the Keeper can, by virtue of section 10(2)(e), enter the underlying owner’s name as well as the prescriptive claimant’s.