Legal Definitions - feu duty

Feu duty refers to a historical annual payment made in Scotland by a landowner (known as the 'feu tenant') to a superior landowner (the 'feu superior'). This payment was a fundamental condition of a specific type of perpetual land ownership called 'feu,' where land was granted forever in exchange for this yearly sum. Although new feu duties were abolished in 1974 and most existing ones extinguished in 2004, the concept remains relevant for understanding historical property law in Scotland.

Here are some examples to illustrate the concept of feu duty:

• Imagine a large Scottish estate in the 18th century. The estate owner, wanting to encourage the development of a new village on their land without selling it outright, might grant portions of the land to individual builders or families under a feu arrangement. Each builder or family would then own their plot perpetually but would be required to pay a small, fixed annual sum, the feu duty, back to the estate owner. This ensured the estate retained a perpetual income stream from the land it had granted.

• Consider a family who purchased their home in a Scottish town in the early 20th century. Their property deeds might have included a clause stipulating a modest annual payment, perhaps a few pounds, to the original landowner or their successors. This recurring payment was the feu duty, a condition of their perpetual ownership of the house and land, distinct from local property taxes.

• Prior to the abolition of feu duties, a company planning to construct a new office building in Glasgow might have acquired the land through a feu charter. Instead of paying a large, one-off purchase price for the absolute freehold, they would commit to paying a regular, fixed feu duty to the original land grantor. This arrangement granted the company perpetual ownership of the land for their commercial development, subject to this ongoing annual payment.