Solum

In Scotland, the solum is simply the ground the building stands on: the soil under the footprint of the house or block.

Where the word comes from

Solum is a Latin word meaning ground or soil.

Scots court papers and conveyancing have long used it for the ground a building stands on. Dictionaries of the Scots Language cites Session Papers usage from 1730.

The Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 keeps that sense in statute: solum means the ground on which a building is erected.

Houses, flats, and tenements

You will hear the word Solum most often when buying a flat in a tenement, because several owners share one building and the titles (and the Act defaults) matter more there.

Who owns the solum?

Your Land Register title sheet, dispositions, and any deed of conditions for the building you are buying will set out the ownership of the solum.

There is no single Scotland-wide pattern.

  • Some titles give the ground under a flat to the bottom flat. Some give every flat a shared right in the solum.
  • Some split the ground under each flat from the ground under the close.

The Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 sets out what “solum” means and how boundaries work when a tenement’s deeds are silent.

Where a tenement’s deeds say nothing about boundaries, the 2004 Act supplies defaults (for example, a bottom flat can include the solum under that flat, and a close can include the solum under the close).

Never assume that all flats own the solum in common, or that the ground-floor flat always owns it.

Airspace above the building generally follows who owns the solum beneath.

Gardens and back courts are not the solum. Ownership of the ground under the building does not automatically settle who owns a drying green or other open ground.

Registers of Scotland mapping of a tenement as one cadastral unit does not itself decide whether the solum under the building is exclusive or common; the title wording does.

Who maintains the solum

Ownership and maintenance duty are not the same thing.

In a tenement, the ground under the building is usually treated as scheme property for shared management and repair under the Tenement Management Scheme.

Owners may share the cost of looking after the ground and foundations even if one person’s title includes the solum.

Many tenements appoint factors (property managers) to arrange inspections, repairs, and insurance for shared or scheme elements.

Factoring fees and repair deposits can touch work that relates to the solum and foundations as well as stairs and roofs.

Sources

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