Planning Circular 6/2011: Compulsory purchase orders

APPENDIX G: Serving the order and its associated notices

G1. The rules and procedure for serving notices are set out in the First Schedule to the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) (Scotland) Act 1947. This Appendix does not repeat these rules and procedures.

Unknown owners, lessees or occupiers

G2. If the authority is unsure whether or not someone is an owner, lessee or occupier it should include the person in the schedule to the order and serve notice on the person ⁷⁰ . Similarly, if the authority has doubt over which of two or more persons is the owner, lessee or occupier it should include them all in the schedule and serve notice on them all. If, after reasonable inquiry ⁷¹ , the authority is unable to ascertain the name and/or address of an owner, lessee or occupier it can serve notice by addressing the notice to 'the owner', 'the occupier' or 'the lessee' of [description of land]. It should deliver this to some person on the premises, where possible. If there is no person to whom the authority can deliver the notice, it should affix the notice to some conspicuous part of the land. It may also wish to notify the community council.

The holders of personal real burdens and benefited proprietors

G3. The authority should serve notice of the order on the holder of any personal real burden or the owner of any benefited property by sending ⁷² , by advertisement, by fixing a conspicuous notice to the land to be acquired and two nearby lamp posts, or by such other means as the authority thinks fit ⁷³ . If sending notice of the order to the holder of a personal real burden or the owner of a benefited property, the authority should explain in a covering letter why it has sent the notice. In particular, if the order does not seek to acquire any land owned by the addressee the authority should make this clear, to avoid confusion.