THE number of cash sales on houses worth The number of Scottish houses worth more than £500,000 being bought with cash has risen by 19.6 percent in 2014, according to new figures.

from Registers of Scotland.

While sales of luxury homes south of the Border has stalled, 599 of the high end properties were were sold for upwards of £500,000 and paid for by their new owners outright last year. It compares with 501 in 2013, said the Registers of Scotland.

Housing analysts believe a key factor behind the jump was a drive from people trying to avoid paying in levies with the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT), which is replacing Stamp Duty in Scotland, kicking off this April.

Under the new LBTT rates, buyers of top end homes will have to pay higher taxes on real estate investment while the tax burden is relieved for buyers of homes worth less than £180,000.

The City of Edinburgh had the highest cash sales volume in 2014, with 254 residential properties a rise of 24per cent on the previous year. Aberdeen City had the second highest with 50 up 47per cent, while Glasgow City came in third with 34, up 17per cent.

When compared with the tax system south of the border, the new proposals will see those buying a property over £330,000 pay more in Scotland.

It is estimated, for example, buying a house worth £500,000 would result in a £23,350 tax bill in Scotland, compared with £15,000 stamp duty south of the border.

Other analysts believe another driver is that investing in property in Scotland is remains markedly cheaper than buying south of the border.

Dr John Boyle, director of research and strategy at Rettie and Co said: "People are being made aware property taxation. We have seen a flood of very expensive properties coming onto the market in the first quarter of this year and we think a lot of that is due to people trying to beat the LBTT rates in April.

"We have sold 25 properties in Scotland over a million pounds in the first couple of months of this year and the same time last year we sold three."

He said it would be wrong to overplay the fact it is overseas buyers who are responsible for the rise saying the "prime market in Scotland tends to be indigenous".

He said 70per cent of million pound sales go to Scottish buyers who are resident in Scotland, 20per cent from other parts of the UK, and ten percent from overseas.

John Kelly, managing partner at Corum said: "The fundamentals of an embedded bottom up recovery are clearly evidenced in numerous reports and economic data supports the first real increase in disposable income for years; however no one likes an increase in taxation!

"With significant increases, in some cases more than 100per cent, perhaps many hard working middle class people have sought to focus on beating the April 1st deadline for the introduction of LBTT.

"Corum are confident that an upward trajectory is likely to be a constant, however how substantial increases in tax might effect higher value transaction prices and volumes remains to be seen - the level of increase is unprecedented and as such it's ramifications are difficult to predict."

Faisal Choudhry, director of Scottish research at Savills added: "I suspect that the many of these buyers are expats or super commuters, possibly looking to invest in Scotland for the excellent value for money compared to London or good schooling. There was only one Russian million pound buyer in 2014, he said.

Kenny Crawford, director of commercial services at RoS, said the figures indicate an increase in cash-rich buyers at the high end of the property market, particularly in Edinburgh, which had the same number of high-value cash sales as the remaining top ten areas combined.

Across Scotland, 32.4 percent of homes worth over £500,000 were paid for in cash last year, compared to 34.4 per cent in 2013.

The picture with properties over £1m is very different, with cash sales accounting for 48.9 per cent of the market in 2014 compared to 42.3 per cent the previous year. In 2013, 47 homes over £1m were paid for in cash. This rose to 65 in 2014.

Aberdeen City had the most expensive individual cash sale at £3.07m. This was also the highest value sale to be registered in 2014 across all transactions, including those which included mortgages.

The second most expensive individual cash sale was in East Lothian at £3m, while the third highest was in Fife, costing £2.6m.