The following is a work in progress. It was triggered by the Topic – Buying the Caravan Park in 1983 and the desire to clarify how the agreements then have shaped the development of the Park Ecovillage until now and into the future. Alex Walker has drafted much of the following article.

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The Turtle Island Fund contributed significantly to the purchase of the caravan park in 1983.
“Turtle Island Fund gave grants to charitable non-profit groups that were land based and doing work in some aspect of earth stewardship. These groups put their land in trust and created covenants that managed their lands ecologically. As Executive Director, I did field site visits, project evaluation, and administered the grant program with the assistance of a small advisory board.” (Betty Didcoct)

To be able to honour the underlying ethos of the grant, the Findhorn Foundation registered a “Declaration of Trust” was registered 16 November 1983.
…the Trustees adopt the following aims and aspirations as the policy of the Trust under their care so long as same are not in contravention of or contrary to the aims and conditions of said Trust as at present constituted or as may be amended from time to time: That is to say, the aims and aspirations are:
THAT all lands and properties under the custodianship of the Foundation, whether owned by the Trust or not, shall be so managed that they not only provide facilities for the furthering of the immediate objectives of the Trust but that they shall be also replenished and preserved for the use and enjoyment of the future generations of the Earth.

A Land Ethic was drawn up:

(We are still looking for the original version to share as a facsimile. The text was included in an article by John Talbott in the One Earth magazine in 1983.) It has been updated many times and has informed the Titleholders conditions – see below.)

From the early 1990s development of permanent housing at The Park gathered momentum. The Findhorn Foundation did not have the capital to fund it all and so entered into agreements with staff and Community members to build their own homes under a ‘Rights of Occupancy’. The occupiers lent their capital to the Findhorn Foundation to build their home, and received the RoC.

As the number of such agreements grew it became clear that a different legal structure was needed. After much research we settled on using a unique Scottish law (Feudal Tenure) which allowed the Findhorn Foundation to ensure that the above Declaration of Trust was maintained. This was implemented in 1998 when the small number of home owners changed their status, bought the land their home was on and received the feudal titles for their property. This was essentially a ‘top-down’ agreement in which the feudal superior (FF) sold land with conditions.

One of the first actions of the devolved Scottish Parliament was the Abolition of Feudal Tenure in 2000. This replaced with few with a new system involving a “Deed of Community Conditions” (DoCC). We adopted that legal structure and used the same substantive clauses used under the few agreements but within a system in which the relevant owners all impose these conditions upon one another. Thus, if a land owner (or titleholder) who owns property on what was once FF land thinks that another titleholder is in breach of the conditions they can’t complain to the Foundation but rather to the collective via the Titleholders’ Association (THA).

One feature of this system is that different land developers at the Park all agreed to use the same substantive clauses. Thus there are three different DoCCs, with one being issued by Findhorn Foundation, another by Duneland and a third by Ekopia.

The DoCCs include the requirement to

and they have two plans – one showing the settlement as whole, the other indicating the specific land that the registering body owns or owned.

So far so straightforward, although there are a few flaws and features of the new system that may be worth mentioning in this context.

The main flaw was discovered some years later when some new purchasers on the Field complained about an additional Pineridge Road levy that was proposed as a one-off cost on top of the regular Hoco charge. They produced their title deeds that did not show either of the Plans mentioned above but a much older version of just the Field from the original feu system. To cut a very long story short it become clear that the solicitors drafting for the deed, had made a mistake and that the relevant conditions were not being passed on to the new owners.

This has never been properly regularised although at present I am assisting the THA in finding a proper solution. In practice, with the exception of the incident I mentioned above this has not had any practical consequences but we really need to make sure that there is a robust system in place long term. Although our community aspirations are always to the fore, the law tends to side with individual owners if things come to a head and so keeping the DoCC firmly in place (and thus attempting to honour the Turtle Island philosophy as well as our own) remains an important task.

Other issues are coming to the fore today that involved conscious intentions of ours at the outset of the DoCC process. John Lowe and I were involved in getting initial advice from the solicitors and in due course presented the outline of a plan to FF Trustees and management. Everyone was agreed that the substantive clauses of the feus should remain in place and in addition an introduction affirming our philosophy was added to that. (It is highly unlikely this is a legally enforceable part of the Deed but it makes a clear point at the outset and one imagines that someone wishing to purchase a house at the Park and not especially knowledgeable about the community might think twice on seeing this).

However, two questions arose that involved a little more debate. The first was that, given what we knew about the Foundation’s relatively slow pace of development relative to the plans of initially EcoVillage Ltd on the Field and then latterly Duneland I was asked the following. Is it possible that as this is a Deed of Community Conditions that one day in the future the number of private/community owners could outvote the Foundation? The answer was of course “yes” and this was a sobering moment for an organisation that had been if not the sole then certainly the main custodian of the Park for several decades. Nonetheless the principle was accepted and indeed a few years ago this is exactly what has happened. As of March 2023 The Foundation has 42% of the total votes available at a THA general meeting.

The second issue was a question of social equity. There have always been a lot of rented properties on The Park, including mobile homes and various forms of community and private letting arrangements. The question was, should these “votes’ be confined only to property owners or should (could?) the franchise be extended to tenants? After discussion, for better or worse, it was agreed that only the former would be offered a say in this aspect of running of The Park. As time has gone by and the volume of tenants has increased significantly this has become more of a topic of conversation. As of todays’ date there are no proposals or specific solutions being mooted but it is also true that a number of individuals both within and without the THA have come to think that some kind of change in the general direction of more inclusiveness is desirable.

This is a complex topic with a long history I realise I may not have provided everything needed and will endeavour to give more information in due course.

All the best,

Alex