Fergus is a highly regarded junior with extensive experience in both public and private law disputes. His practice has three broad areas of specialisation: property law, trusts and succession, and, in the public law realm, planning and environmental law.
He is ranked for Private Client in the latest edition of Chambers & Partners UK: “Fergus Colquhoun is very knowledgeable and professional. He has good rapport with judiciaries, has excellent court manner and is prepared thoroughly for court hearings.” “Fergus is a good land and property lawyer but is also very good with rural agricultural trust work.” He is “very good at taking instructions at short notice if need be, and his written work is exceptional.” Chambers & Partners UK, 2026
Fergus is also ranked as a leading junior for Private Client and Property, Planning & Construction in the latest edition of The Legal 500 which describes him as “an empathetic and articulate advocate” and “a user-friendly junior whose written and oral advocacy is first rate.” Legal 500, 2026
Biography
Fergus trained with a leading Edinburgh private client firm, gaining extensive experience in most aspects of urban and rural property law, trust law, and taxation. After qualifying, he worked for a year in-house on a highland estate overseeing the voluntary registration of title, and providing legal advice pertaining to all areas of the business. Since calling to the bar in 2020, Fergus has developed a diverse practice focusing on property law, trusts and succession, and planning and environmental law.
Fergus has broad experience of property law disputes. He has developed a particular expertise in rural property disputes, including agricultural holdings and crofting law. He also advises in matters relating to residential and commercial leases, and in disputes over servitudes and real burdens.
Fergus regularly advises on questions relating to succession (including the administration of estates) and trust law. He is regularly instructed to provide opinions on the terms of wills and trusts, with a particular focus on providing practical advice to avoid costly litigation in small estates where possible. He acts for litigants in challenges to wills on a regular basis. Fergus also has a personal interest in peerage and heraldic law and has provided advice on a variety of different practical issues in those areas, both as a solicitor and as an advocate.
Fergus’ public law practice is focused on planning law and environmental disputes. He has significant experience of statutory appeals under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997, and of judicial reviews of a variety of executive and local authority decisions. Acting as junior to several of Terra Firma’s silks, he has been involved in challenges to the Scottish Government fisheries licensing scheme, wind farm developments, and environmental consents for oil and gas installations in the North Sea.
Appointments
- Tutor in Jurisprudence and Trusts & Succession, University of Edinburgh (2019 to date)
- Treasurer, Trusts, Fiduciaries and Executries Bar Group (TrustBar)
- Ad Hoc Advocate Depute (Sentencing Appeals) (2021 - 2024)
- Trustee, Loch Lomond Fisheries Trust
Publications
- Contentious Trusts Association
- Scottish Planning, Local Government, and Environmental Law Bar Group
- Trusts, Fiduciaries and Executries Bar Group
Recent Cases
Planning and Environmental
- Petition by Uplift for Judicial Review [2025] CSOH 10 - Rosebank Oil Field
- Caz Rae v Glasgow City Council [2025] CSIH 1; 2025 S.L.T. 159
- Wildcat Haven v Scottish Ministers [2024] CSIH 39; 2024 S.L.T. 1296
- Trustees for the Eastgate Unit Trust v The Highland Council [2024] CSOH 80; [2024] CSOH 50
- Open Seas Trust, petitioners [2024] CSIH 9; 2024 S.C. 338
- Trees for Life v Naturescot [2021] CSOH 108
- West Dunbartonshire Council v The Scottish Ministers and Barratt Homes West Scotland [2021] CSIH 49 - a challenge against a decision of the Scottish Ministers to allow an appeal against a refusal of planning permission for a residential development at a site known as Duntiglennan Fields near Clydebank.
- Graham's The Family Dairy and Others in the Petition of Elan Homes Scotland Limited For Judicial Review [2021] CSOH 74 - a challenge by the Petitioners against the Scottish Ministers' decision to amend the Scottish Planning Policy (SPP) and to publish an accompanying planning advice note (PAN 1/2020).
Property Law
- Alastair MacLachlan v Jennifer Lamont or MacLachlan [2025] SLC 7 - Two applications by former husband and wife seeking declarator that each is the rightful cottar of the dwelling house known as Ormerhaven, 3 Gott, Isle of Tiree, plus an order requiring the landlord to grant a conveyance in terms of section 12(2) of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1993. The Scottish Land Court fixed concurrent diets of proof before answer, restricted to the question of whether either party is a cottar. The Court agreed with Counsel's detailed written submissions that the applicant had resided full time in Ormerhaven since 2017 with the express knowledge and consent of the landlords. Since then, he has fallen, and remains, within the statutory definition of cottar.
- MacFarlane (St Helier) Corporation v Marie MacInnes and Others [2024] SLC 12 - an application by the heritable proprietor of the crofting township of Luib for declarator that an area of ground within the township was not subject to crofting tenure. The application was opposed by a number of crofters and utlimately determined on the basis of written submissions.
- MacLachlan v MacDonald [2024] SLC 7; 2024 S.L.T. (Land Ct) 63
- Mark Pattinson v John Miller Matheson [2022] CSIH 43 - special case under section 1(7) of the Scottish Land Court Act 1993 regarding the correct interpretation of the statutory provisions which govern the transfer of croft tenancies upon the death of the crofter.
Trusts and Succession
- DP against BR [2026] SC INV 55 - A dispute between different members of a deceased man's family over who had the right to make his funeral arrangements and, in particular, to determine where he would be buried. This was the first reported case on the application of section 65 of the Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016.
- McInally v McInally [2024] SAC (Civ) 5
