Meet Sheenagh – our newest superhero!
Martin with Aston.
Sheenagh is sometimes mobbed by solicitors. Sh e e n a g h’s actions keep Scotland ticking over while her identity remains hidden in the shadows.
Despite her antiquated title, her role is essential.
She’s responsible for the upkeep of 17 public registers that relate to land, property, and other legal documents.
Her senior civil servant job as head of the Land Registry of Scotland means she’s in charge of documenting who owns what land and where – essential business when it comes to the legal nitty- gritty of buying a house, whether it’s a mansion or a bedsit.
She says, “When I introduce myself and what I do a lot of people raise their eyebrows at my title.
“It’s a bit like Black Rod in the Houses of Parliament.
“It is a job that probably sounds a lot grander than it actually is.”
While the Keeper’s job dates back centuries, she’s breaking new ground as the first woman ever to hold the title in its 400-year history.
But charting land ownership in Scotland actually dates back much further than that.
It was in the 13th Century when the state started keeping copies of deeds about sales of land at Edinburgh Castle.
By 1617, law was set out to ensure land began getting registered under the Registers of Sasine – giving Scotland the oldest publically available land register in the world.
That Sasine system kept in place until 1979 when it was re p l a c e d w i t h the Land Register, which meant you could see it on a map.
Sheenagh, who has worked as a civil servant since 1990, says: “Before it was a system based on describing where your land ran from, which could cause problems.
“Since the Land Register came into force, it meant you could see where the land was on a map.”
Despite Scotland having led the way globally, it now lags behind in the sense the Land Registr y has never been finished – until now.
Sheenagh and her team at RoS, still based in an Edinburgh HQ, have ambitious plans to chart who owns all of Scotland in the coming years.
It won’t be finished for the 400th anniversary in June, but it will be done by 2024.
There are also bold efforts to turn the same register digital.
“When it’s finished it will be well worth it,” she says.