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William M Gordon and Scott Wortley, SCOTTISH LAND LAW, VOLUME 1 Edinburgh: W Green (www.wgreen.co.uk), 3rd edn, 2009. cxxxvii + 688 pp. ISBN 9780414015548. £165.

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Date01 September 2010
AuthorDouglas J Cusine
Published date01 September 2010
Pages539-540
DOI10.3366/elr.2010.0320

This is the first volume of what will be a two-volume third edition of Scottish Land Law. As a student in the 1960s, it seemed to me that landownership was a subject which had not changed a great deal that since the last edition of Rankine's treatise on land ownership in 1909. That may have been incorrect, and in no way do I blame my lecturer, Dr Gordon, as he then was, for this mis-conception, if indeed that is what it was. However, what cannot be gainsaid is that, apart from Rankine, the only treatment of land law was to be found in general texts, such as Gloag and Henderson's Introduction to the Law of Scotland, and T B Smith's A Short Commentary on the Law of Scotland, and good as they were, they were no more than an introduction.

In the first edition of Scottish Land Law, Professor Gordon made it clear that it was not his intention to update Rankine, but for those who work in this field, it is undoubtedly the case that it would be to this book, and not to Rankine, that one would look first and in all probability no further (except to examine the authorities), given that Scottish Land Law was and is a fresh start.

This third edition, which is co-authored, carries on Professor Gordon's quite proper reputation for thorough research, accuracy and clarity of expression. Such attributes are achieved only when the authors have a comprehensive and detailed knowledge of the particular subject. As academics, one would expect the authors to be able to express things clearly – which they do. There can also be a temptation on the part of an author to assume that where cases have been repeatedly cited in other texts for a particular proposition, there is no need to read the case. It seems to me that this temptation has not been yielded to by Gordon and Wortley, as it ought not to be.

This first volume covers land and rights over land, while the second will deal with security rights and burdens. The first volume has taken account of the abolition of the feudal system and the new general regime for title conditions and in particular the clarification of the law of the tenement not only as regards burdens but also...

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