Highland estate goes to overseas buyer

Fresh fears were raised yesterday about the growing number of absentee landlords in Scotland after the second sale in a week of a Highland estate to an overseas buyer, writes John Arlidge.

Lisbet Koerner, whose family founded the multi-million pound Swedish packaging company Tetra Pak, bought the Corrour estate on Rannoch Moor for pounds 3m. The 48,000-acre estate is one of the most remote in the Highlands: it can only be reached by the West Highland railway line.

More than 300 people expressed an interest in the property when it was put on the market earlier this year. But for the fifth time this year, the estate went to a foreign buyer. Last week, the Glenavon estate in the Cairngorms was sold to Andras, a company headed by a Malaysian businessman.

The sale has led environmentalists and politicians to call for a change in Scottish land laws. They claim absentee landlords damage the environment and force tenants off the land.