century has, little by little, been combining with the English law by a slow operation of fusion. The system of land tenure in Scotland was until recently feudal in nature. In theory, this meant that the land was held under The Crown as ultimate feudal superior. Historically, The Crown would make a grant of land in return for military or other services and the grantees would in turn make sub-grants for other services and so on. Those making grants – the "superiors" – retained a legal interest in the land ("dominium directum"), and so a hierarchical structure was created with each property having a number of owners, co-existing simultaneously. Only one of these, the vassal, has what in normal language would be regarded as ownership of the property ("dominium utile"). The Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 abolished the feudal system of land tenure in Scotland and replaced it with a system of outright ownership of land. Since the Act became fully effective from 28 November 2004, the vassal owns the land outright, and superiority interests disappeared. The right of feudal superiors to enforce conditions was ended, subject to certain saving provisions of a restricted nature. Feu duty was abolished although compensation may be payable. The delay between royal assent and coming into force was caused by the great number of transitional arrangements needed to be put into place before final abolition and because of the close relation that the 2000 Act has to the Title Conditions Act 2003. England Unique in England, the village of Laxton in Nottinghamshire continues to retain some vestiges of the feudal system in which the land is still farmed using the open field system. The feudal court now meets only annually, with its authority now restricted to management of the farmland. Sark The tiny island of Sark, in the Channel Islands, was arguably the last feudal state in Europe until April 9, 2008. The island was a fiefdom of the larger nearby island of Guernsey and administered independently by a Seigneur, who was a vassal to the land's owner, the Queen of the United Kingdom. Sark's ruling body voted on 4 October 2006 to replace the remaining tenement seats in Chief Pleas with a fully-elected democratic government, which was implemented on April 9, 2008. North Korea North Korea has been described as a feudal state because of their caste system, Songbun. Regular