Property Standardisation Group update

The Property Standardisation Group (PSG) is pleased to announce that it has reviewed all the PSG documents in light of the Land Registration etc (Scotland) Act 2012. New versions of the following documents have been published on the PSG website (www.psglegal.co.uk):

• letter of consent to assignation and guidance notes;
• letter of consent to sublease and guidance notes;
• due diligence questionnaire and guidance notes;
• completion checklist;
• certificate of title and accompanying documents;
• optional clauses for the offers to sell.

Where possible we have included wording to cater for the land and buildings transaction tax, but this has not been possible in all of the documents as we await details of the arrangements for paying LBTT and details on the reliefs etc that will be available.

We have made some further amendments to the offers to sell (2012 Act versions) and guidance notes.

The PSG letters of obligation and guidance notes are superseded with the 2012 Act coming into force. Under the Act there will be few occasions where a letter of obligation is still required. We have identified two situations where a letter of obligation will still be required because it will not be possible to use advance notices. To distinguish the post-2012 Act letters from the pre-2012 Act letters we will refer to the new letters as letters of undertaking. We have produced new letters of undertaking for:

• loan transaction in the Sasine Register not involving land registration; and
• lease transaction where the lease is not registrable (i.e. duration of the lease is 20 years or less).

We have also produced two letters of undertaking relating to the delivery of a discharge of a standard security where this is not available at completion. All of the previous PSG letters of obligation and the guidance notes have been archived but can still be accessed on the PSG website.

We have not produced new guidance on the letters of undertaking, and recommend that solicitors read the Law Society of Scotland guidance on the use of letters of obligation in Section F, Division C of the rules and guidance on the Society’s website.