Quote Originally Posted by gilmore View Post
It's not that the government is and has been "gathering" land. The legal theory underpining land ownership in Anglo-Scottish-American real property law is that the government (or the Crown in the UK) already owns all the land within its boundaries, as well as everything underneath it and everything above it. What real property owners have is often described as a "bundle of rights" to the land granted by the government, no more and no less.

Real estate owners aren't sovereign entities with their own little countries. They are actually tenants of the government.

That bundle of rights, at least in America, is extremely important, along with the recognition of title and it's transfer through sale and inheritance, etc. But the government is supposed to defend and uphold those rights, so not that bad a deal lest you have to defend it yourself...

I don't know that all people have those same property rights in Scotland, and it appears that they did not in the past. I'm trying to be mild.