UrAcres · Scotland land guides

How to buy a croft in Scotland

Buying a croft isn't like buying an ordinary house or field. Most crofts are tenancies, not freehold, and everything — building a house, taking it on, even living away — runs through the Crofting Commission. Here's how it works.

Updated 2026-06-19 · plain-English guide, not legal advice

What is a croft, exactly?

A croft is a small agricultural landholding — averaging around 5 hectares, often with a share in nearby common grazings — held under a distinct statutory system set out in the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1993. It exists only in the "crofting counties": Argyll, Caithness, Inverness, Ross & Cromarty, Sutherland, Orkney and Shetland. Since 2010, new crofts can also be created in designated areas including the rest of Highland, all of Moray, the Bute parishes, and Arran & Cumbrae. There are roughly 21,800 crofts in Scotland.

Tenanted vs owner-occupied — the part everyone gets wrong

This is the single most important thing to understand before you spend a penny.

Tenanted crofts (about 70%)

You don't buy the land — you buy the tenancy, through a process called assignation. You become the crofting tenant, pay a (usually small) annual rent to the landlord, and the transfer must be approved by the Crofting Commission. An assignation made without consent is null and void. The figure you pay the outgoing crofter is effectively for the tenancy and any house or improvements, not the land itself.

Owner-occupied crofts (about 30%)

Here you buy the land — but, crucially, it remains in crofting tenure. It is not ordinary freehold. You're still a "crofter," still regulated by the Commission, and still bound by crofters' duties. The only way land ever leaves crofting is decrofting (see below).

What duties do I take on as a crofter?

• Residency: you must live on the croft or within 32 km of it (you can apply to the Commission for consent to be absent).
• Cultivation / use: you must work the croft or put it to another "purposeful use," and keep it in good condition.
• No misuse or neglect: letting it go to waste can trigger Commission enforcement — in the worst case, a forced let or loss of the croft.

Can a tenant crofter buy their croft land?

Yes. A crofting tenant has a statutory right to buy the croft land from the landlord. For the croft house site the right is near-absolute; for the wider agricultural land the landlord can object and the Scottish Land Court decides. The price is based on a long-standing formula — broadly the annual rent × 15 — with the Land Court fixing it if there's a dispute. Note that common grazings shares aren't included.

I want to build a house and live off-grid. Can I?

Not automatically — and this catches a lot of buyers. To put a house on croft land you generally need two separate approvals: planning permission from the council, and decrofting — a Crofting Commission direction that removes the house site from crofting tenure. You have an absolute right to decroft one house site plus garden, up to 0.2 hectares; anything larger needs a "reasonable purpose." If you're a tenant and you decroft, you must then buy that land from the landlord within five years. (See also our guide on living off-grid legally in Scotland.)

Are there grants?

• Croft House Grant: up to £28,000 (standard areas) or £38,000 (high-priority areas) towards building or improving a croft home.
• Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme: capital projects (fencing, sheds, drainage), up to around £25,000 per crofter at 60–80% rates.

Figures change — confirm current amounts on Rural Payments & Services.

How much does a croft cost?

There's no official price index, and the range is wide — anywhere from under £10,000 to £200,000+. Price is driven mostly by whether there's a house or a buildable site, and by location (island and coastal crofts command a premium), not by land quality. Tenancies sit at the cheaper end; owner-occupied crofts cost more. You can check a croft's status on the Crofting Register.

Five things that catch out off-grid buyers

1. You can't just build. Planning and decrofting, both separate, and the house-site decroft is capped at 0.2 ha.
2. The residency duty is real. Live within 32 km or face enforcement.
3. Common grazings come with strings. Shares are managed by an elected committee, with rules and a livestock cap.
4. Regulation never ends. Owners and tenants alike stay under Commission oversight indefinitely.
5. Mortgages are tricky. Un-decrofted croft land is generally not mortgageable — lenders usually want the house and garden decrofted first.