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Section 8: Extinction of other rights relating to property by prescriptive periods of twenty years.

Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 · 1973 c. 52View on legislation.gov.uk

Part I: Prescription

If, after the date when any right to which this section applies has become exercisable or enforceable, the right has subsisted for a continuous period of twenty years unexercised or unenforced ... then as from the expiration of that period the right shall be extinguished.

Subsection (1B) applies if—

a relevant claim is made in relation to a right to which this section applies,
the claim is made before the time at which the prescriptive period mentioned in subsection (1) would, but for subsection (1B), expire, and
at that time—
the claim has not been finally disposed of, and
the proceedings in which the claim is made have not otherwise come to an end.

The prescriptive period is extended so that it expires—

when the claim is finally disposed of, or
when the proceedings in which the claim is made come to an end (where the proceedings come to an end without the claim having been finally disposed of).

If the relevant claim (as finally disposed of) is successful, the right is to be treated for the purposes of subsection (1) as having been exercised or enforced by the creditor at the time when the claim was made.

This section applies to any right relating to property, whether heritable or moveable, not being a right specified in Schedule 3 to this Act as an imprescriptible right or falling within section 6 or 7 of this Act as being a right correlative to an obligation to which either of those sections applies.

About this text

This legislation text comes from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These source and reuse terms cover the legislation text, not Remedy's commentary.

Reuse reviewed 21 August 2026 under Open Government Licence v3.0.