Advertising Guidance for Crofters

What is advertising?

Advertising means placing a notice in a local newspaper. This lets others know about changes you want to make. The Crofting Commission only accepts notices placed in certain publications that include news and other information. Any publication must be included on our list of approved publications.

What regulatory application types require advertising?

Crofters must place a notice when they want to apply for:

• Assignation: Transfer their croft tenancy to someone else.
• Apportionment: allows a shareholder to take exclusive use of a specific area of common grazing land.
• Division: Split their croft or grazings share into smaller crofts.
• Exchange: Swap land with another croft.
• Letting: Rent out their croft.
• Subletting: Allow someone else to rent the croft, or part of it for no more than 10 years.
• Short-term lets: Rent out their owner-occupied croft for no more than 10 years.

Common Grazings must place a notice when:

• A new Grazings Committee is being appointed.

The Crofting Commission must place a notice when processing the following applications:

• Decrofting: When a croft land is removed from crofting tenure.
• Creating new crofts: When new crofts are formed.

When do I need to place a notice?

Applicants (Crofters) must advertise:

• Apportionment

The Crofting Commission will tell you when you need to place your notice. It is important to wait until you are instructed to advertise the apportionment.

• Assignation, Division, Exchange, Letting, Subletting, Short-term lets

Your notice must be published no earlier than one month before you submit your application and no later than two months after submission.

Common Grazings Committee must advertise:

• Appointing New Grazings Committee

It is recommended that your notice is published 10 days prior to the appointment of a Grazings Committee meeting.

The Crofting Commission must advertise:

• Decrofting

 After an application to decroft has been received and assessed as valid.

• Creating new crofts

After an application to create a new croft has been received and assessed as valid.

Where can I place a notice?

The Crofting Commission has a list of approved newspapers for each area, which is noted below. You can check the table on this page to find out the appropriate publication to place your notice in.

If you want to use a newspaper that is not on the list, please contact the Commission first.

*Please refer to the table below to confirm which geographical area the parish is listed under. You can find out the parish the croft is located in by checking your croft record in the Register of Crofts (ROC) online.

Important Note:

This page provides general guidance only. It is not legal advice.

Please contact the Registers of Scotland for first registration of a croft advertising information: Register a croft - RoS Knowledge Base

More Information

You can call us on: 01463 663439
or email on info@crofting.gov.scot