Persons Indexing Guidelines

Indexable Fields

Within the Land Register, data is input into the PRELINK, PREFIX, FORENAME, SURNAME/COMPANY NAME and LINK TEXT fields. Picklist facilities are available in most of these fields on the LRS and should be used where this reflects the deed. Any business requirement to add any other entries to these picklists should be made via RoSNow. 

Note that if you encounter foreign characters or diacritical marks (accents (e.g. " é "), çedile, ümlaut etc) added to any letters included in a person's name or address, please refer to RoS supported character set. See also Entering Accents and Foreign Characters in the LRS.

Prelink field

Generally, the Prelink field should be used for anything which does not form part of the “name proper”, but would be expected to appear in the proprietorship section to reflect the true meaning. A picklist is available.

The following is an example of when the Prelink field should be used:

Christina Mitchell as Executor of Janis Jane Young

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Prefix field

Again, the Prefix field should be used for anything that does not form part of the “name proper”, but would be expected to appear in the proprietorship section. A picklist is available but its contents are not exhaustive, therefore any prefix narrated in the deed should be entered in the Prefix field. For the avoidance of doubt, Mr, Mrs and Ms or Miss should not be entered.

The following is an example of when the Prefix field should be used:

Doctor Joseph MacDonell - Doctor, DOCTOR, Dr. are all acceptable derivatives

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The following is an example of when the Prefix and Prelink fields should both be used:

Michael Fairgrieve and Angela Brown as Partners of and Trustees for the Firm of Fairgrieve and Brown

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Forename field

The following is an example of when the Forename field should be used:

Janis Jane Young

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If an additional forename does not appear in the deed, but is disclosed elsewhere in the application, this should be included in the forename field entry.

Surname/Company Name field 

The following are examples of when the Surname/Company Name field should be used. Persons' surnames should always be included within the Surname/Company Name field:

Janis Jane Young

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All companies and other organisations should be indexed wholly within the Surname/Company Name field. When the word “The” prefixes an organisation’s name, this should not be indexed (see examples below and Inclusion of "The" in the Table of Contents):

James Smith & Company Ltd

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East Lothian Council

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The University of Glasgow

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See Inclusion of "The" in the Table of Contents.

The Ancient Order of Foresters

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The King's and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer

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Link text field 

The Link text field is used to link various entries together and to provide additional information e.g. and, both, incorporated etc. It should be noted that LRS generates an automatic "and" between names. A picklist is available:

George and Valerie Rough, both

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George Rough and Valerie Rough, residing at the same address

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Bank of Alba plc, incorporated under the Companies Acts, (Registered number SC12345678), Registered Office at …

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Sir Alasdair MacDonald of Islay

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John (otherwise Ian) Smith

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John Smith, senior and John Smith, junior, both ...

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"Care of" in Link text field

Where a party is designed as "care of" another party, this should only be reflected in the entry if the designation is a business. For consistency, "care of" should always be entered in full and should not be abbreviated:

Jack Smith c/o Bank of Alba plc 1 Dingwall Road, Inverness

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Person's Designation 

The person's address should where possible reflect the designation shown on the deed. However, where the application form or other documents submitted with or supporting an application contain additional information about the parties' designation(s) (such as when dealing with an application for voluntary registration), the registration officer should make use of this where possible when preparing the relevant entry. The Postcode field should always be completed if this information is provided on the application form.

Either the Locality or Town field should always be populated on LRS for Scottish addresses. In order to identify which field is appropriate, please refer to the page Localities and Post Towns in Scotland. If an Agent submits a deed with both the Locality and the Town detailed, then both should be inserted into the relative LRS fields. If it is determined that a person's designation refers to two (or more) Localities, the registration officer should only enter the correct Locality in the Locality field: no entry should be made in the Town field in such cases if no Town has been provided within the designation (see Example 15 below). The Royal Mail Postcode Finder may also help in determining the correct Locality in such cases.

As the Locality field can accept 35 characters, Localities should normally be able to be entered in full. However, Hamilton International Technology Park (38 characters) should be entered as Hamilton International Tech Park (see Example 16 below).

Note that the Town field is currently not a mandatory field and so need not be completed for a person's designation, if the rest of their designation is otherwise sufficient. Also note that neither the County nor the Country fields should be completed for Scottish addresses.

Examples:

Postcodes

If a designation in a deed/application form includes a postcode, this should always be shown.

Non Scottish Addresses - Rest of the UK

For all UK addresses the Country field should be left blank in the LRS. Any information provided in a deed as to a County in a person's designation should be included in the LRS. County names should be entered in their full form and never abbreviated and Northern Irish counties should always include the prefix "County" even if only the abbreviated form "Co." is given in the deed or is omitted.

Non Scottish Addresses - Rest of the World

See Indexing People with Non-Scottish Addresses - Rest of the World

Spelling

As with all manual indexing, care should be taken to ensure that the spelling of all persons' data is accurate and consistent.

In particular:

• Ensure that there are no obvious spelling errors.

• When a husband and wife are the applicants/granters, ensure that both surnames are consistently spelled.

• However, when the applicant has a non-English originating name, take care that the spelling coincides exactly with that in the deed. Many non-English names have different masculine and feminine forms. For example, Slavic masculine surnames that end in I or Y, end in an A in the feminine form. These should not be amended in order to achieve consistent spelling.

Punctuation

Hyphenated names

Hyphenated names should be entered as one name. There should be no spaces either side of the hyphen:

Anne-Marie Clark

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James Smith-Jones

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Apostrophes

Names that contain apostrophes should be entered as they appear. Care should be taken to ensure that the letter ”O” is used, and not the number “0”:

Michael O’Rourke

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Initials and/ or full stops (company names)

Initials should be entered with a space between them. Do not include full stops:

A. D. Wyllie and Company

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A full stop indicating an abbreviated word should be omitted:

Belgravia Trading Corp.

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However, a full stop must always be used after Saint where it has been abbreviated, i.e. St.

Elizabeth Frances St. John

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Abbreviations within company names

The form that a company name takes within the proprietorship section may affect company liability.

All company names must follow the format within the application, i.e. if the documents describe the applicant as British Company plc – plc must be entered. If the documentation describes the applicants as Scottish Company Limited – Limited must be entered in full. However, a full stop indicating an abbreviated word must be omitted in line with the advice above. If the application forms and deeds use different versions of the name (e.g. Limited vs Ltd), you can confirm the correct name by searching the company’s registered number on the Companies House website.

Park Housing Co. Limited

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Park Housing Company Limited

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Ankledge Ltd

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Ankledge Limited

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Walker & Son

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Walker and Son

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Armstrong Bros.

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Armstrong Brothers

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Big Bank plc

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Big Bank Public Limited Company

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Commas

Commas should not be entered between initials as this is incompatible with ScotLIS.

Firm of H, M & K Norman

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Brackets

Brackets within names should be entered as they appear. Care should be taken to ensure that curly type brackets (beside the letter P on the keyboard) are not used on LRS as this has an adverse affect on printing from the system:

Government Offices (1993) Superannuation Committee

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Surnames

Prefixed surnames

Prefixed surnames should be entered as one name:

Antonia da Gamma

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Anne Marie van Oostrum

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Multiple prefixes

Where there is more than one prefix for the surname / family name, all of these should also be entered in the surname field:

Frances de la Val

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Abdul Rahman bin Omar al-Ahmad

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Mc and Mac

The feminine form of Mac/Mc can be Nic. This especially applies to Gaelic-speaking counties. 

Mc, Mac and Nic etc should be entered as they appear:

Sandra McDonald

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John Maclay

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Sheonagh NicNeill

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Initials (forenames)

As shown in Initials and/or full stops (see Table of Contents) initials should be entered with a space between them. They should not include any full stops:

G. Douglas Barrie

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Inclusion of “The”

When the word “The” prefixes an organisation’s name, this should not be indexed. For example:

The East Lothian Council

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The Secretary of State for Defence

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The Golf Shop Limited

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Exceptions to the above rule

The only exception to this rule is The Church of Scotland, see the example below. Always select the style shown on the LRS picklist (i.e. use "The" not "THE").

The Church of Scotland 

‘The’ should always be included in the Prefix field when indexing The Church of Scotland. The ‘Church of Scotland General Trustees’ should be chosen from the Surname/Company Name picklist:

The Church of Scotland General Trustees

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Registered companies

When the word “THE” forms an integral part of the name of an organisation, it is included in the Surname/Company Name field as shown below:

Firm of Scotland The Brave

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Graham the Builders Limited

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Executors

As Applicants

Entries including “Executors of” should include this within the Prelink field. It should be noted that all executors should be specifically named within the applicants field in the application workdesk and the proprietorship section of the title sheet.

The following example applies to the application workdesk when indexing Applicants names and addresses:

James Stevenson, and Stuart Stevenson, both 25 Troon Way, Prestwick, Ayr as Executors of Cameron Stevenson, latterly 25 Troon Way, Prestwick, Ayr

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As Granters

For Granters you should only index the ‘Executors of C’ (i.e. the names of A and B should not be indexed):

James Stevenson, and Stuart Stevenson, both 25 Troon Way, Prestwick, Ayr as Executors of Cameron Stevenson, 25 Troon Way, Prestwick, Ayr

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Firm Names

General indexing of firm names

Note that, when indexing limited and public limited companies, Type "C" (Company) should be selected. For other firms and organisations that do not have limited liability, the Type selected should be "O" (Other).

All firm names should be indexed wholly within the Surname/Company Name field.

Initials should be entered with a space between them. Do not include full stops:

A. D. Wyllie and Company

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All company names must follow the format used in the deed, i.e. if the documents describe the applicant as British Company Public Limited Company – Public Limited Company must be entered in full. If the documentation describes the applicants as Scottish Company Ltd – Ltd must be entered in its abbreviated form.

James Smith & Company Ltd

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Commas should not be entered between initials as this is incompatible with ScotLIS:

Stuart, Donald and Brownlee Limited

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Local Authorities

All local authorities should be indexed so that the authority's full name is entered into the Surname/Company Name field:

South Lanarkshire Council

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Bear in mind that "The" should not be entered as part of the name, see Inclusion of "The" in the Table of Contents. :

 

The East Lothian Council

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Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar (otherwise Western Isles Council)

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Note that only the Gaelic name should be entered as the Western Isles Council was officially renamed as Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar in 1997.

Secretary of State / Government Agencies / Scottish Ministers

All Secretaries of State, e.g. for Scotland, Defence etc., Government Agencies and the Scottish Ministers should be entered in the same manner:

Secretary of State for Scotland

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See Inclusion of "The".

 

The Secretary of State for Defence

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The Scottish Ministers

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The Forestry Commissioners

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Overseas Entities

When entering an Overseas Entity into the Proprietorship section, the following pre-populated text should be used in the Link text field as below – “Registered in the Register of Overseas Entities at Companies House with overseas entity ID OExxxxxx". (the OE ID must be 6 digits, for example - OE000123)

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Nobility and Peerage

Full name and family title

Names that contain a full given name and a family title should be double indexed. This procedure applies to all ranks of male / female nobility, e.g. Duke / Duchess, Marquess / Marchioness (alternatively Marquis / Marquise), Earl (equivalent to Count) / Countess, Viscount / Viscountess and Baron / Baroness. 

The first (given) part of the name is entered in the usual manner. Then the second part (the title) can be added using the prefix. Note that a comma should be entered in the link text:

Alan William George Windsor, Duke of Dundee

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Alan William George Windsor, 10th Duke of Dundee

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Full name and title

Names which contain a title and a full name should be entered using a combination of prefix, forename and link text:

Sir Alasdair MacDonald of Islay

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Name and title only

If only the person's noble rank and title name are given (i.e. the person's given name is not supplied at all and the deed simply refers to the grantee as e.g. "Lord Paisley"), refer to a senior adviser.

His Majesty the King 

Instances of transfers to the King should be indexed as follows:

Open

Please note if your application contains a transfer in favour of His Majesty King Charles the third please reflect this on LRS as above using the Roman Numeral.

Clan Chiefs

Where clan names are listed as e.g. Ruairidh George Donald MacRobert of MacRobert, the whole of the clan name should be shown in the Surname/Company Name field:

Ruairidh George Donald MacRobert of MacRobert

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Nobility and Peerage: further examples

The Right Honourable TOMMY ALBRIGHT, Lord ALBRIGHT of Brigadoon -

Entry 1 - Prefix - Right Honourable : Forename - Tommy : Surname - ALBRIGHT : link text - , Entry 2 -  Prefix - Lord ALBRIGHT of : Forename - blank : Surname - Brigadoon

FIONA CAMPBELL ALBRIGHT, Lady Albright of Brigadoon

Entry 1 - Forename : Fiona Campbell : Surname - Albright : link text - , Entry 2 - Prefix : Lady ALBRIGHT of : Surname - Brigadoon

Married Women

In instances of married women i.e. “or” names, “Otherwise” should be used in the link text box field and the second name added. 

Alternative Names

Alternative and former names

All former and true alternative names should be included in the application workdesk to ensure that all names are searchable in both the Land Register, ScotLIS and Register of Inhibitions (ROI). Alternative names should be shown using the link text “Otherwise” no other link text should be used. 

John (otherwise Ian) Smith

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Boat names

In fishing counties e.g.Banff, fishermen may still be known in deeds by the name of their boat. These examples should be indexed as follows:

Peter Wells (otherwise Rosebud)

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Current Name - Title Sheet

The application workdesk should contain all former and true alternative names. However, in the case of the title sheet only the current name should be disclosed (along with any true alternatives). The exception is where additional information is provided in a subsequent application, e.g. a second security. See examples below:

Existing proprietorship section

Existing securities section