Australians most interested in Scottish property

Posted by Votta Sales & Lettings on 5th August 2019 -

New figures show that Australia is top of the table when it comes to owning property in Scotland.

SafeDeposits Scotland has provided their stats on owners of Scottish residential property who use their scheme and have found that Australia leads the way shortly followed by the USA.

Ireland ranked third for overseas Scottish property owners with 223, followed by the United Arab Emirates (187), France (182), Spain (161) and Canada (126).

The top 10 was completed by Germany (113), New Zealand (109), and Hong Kong (108).

Separately to those based overseas, in the rest of the UK, England boasts the most landlords of Scottish property with 7,279, followed by Northern Ireland with 579 and Wales with 192.

Ian Potter, Chair of SafeDeposits Scotland, said: “Scottish commercial property has become increasingly popular with overseas investors (Knight Frank reported a £40m growth between 2014 and 2018[1]), but information on those buying and renting private residential property has been less well documented. Alongside overseas investors will be Scots who have moved abroad – temporarily or permanently – and decided to retain property in Scotland.

“Our figures demonstrate that landlords of Scottish property live all over the world. The landlords that we know about are already aware of their obligations to protect tenancy deposits, but there may be others out there that are unfamiliar with the Scottish system.

“Landlords who fail to protect their tenant’s deposit run the risk of a penalty up to the value of three times the value of the deposit should the tenant take them to the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber).”