Viewpoints

Can I issue a general plea to the profession to immediately stop qualifying standard clause 4 to exclude appliances? It creates no end of argument and delay in concluding missives. It is my very firm view that given that in most cases sellers will be receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds for the properties they sell, in these circumstances they should expect to warrant that items such as washing machines, cookers etc should be working on the date of entry. That, after all, is all that is being asked of them in terms of standard clause 4.

Can I encourage members of the profession who are acting for sellers simply to tell their clients that they must ensure that any of their appliances are working on the date of entry (subject always to provisions of standard clause 4), and that if they are not they will require to pay for the repair or replacement or disclose at the outset that a particular appliance is not working. If everyone accepted this, the already difficult path towards concluding missives might be smoothed somewhat.

Neil Cavers, Cavers & Co, Kirkcudbright

Little has been said publicly about the Regulation of Legal Services Bill as it impacts in-house lawyers. However a stage 1 submission from East Dunbartonshire Council provides some perspective.

First, the council notes that the Roberton review, with its focus on solicitors and “consumers” of legal services (not defined), made no distinction between solicitors working in private practice and those in-house. “This is unfortunate given that approximately 30% of the legal profession in Scotland works in-house across the public and private sectors”.

Roberton did not address costs and funding, and the council raises a concern that the cost of any changes “will likely require to be borne by the profession and, in turn, be passed to consumers of legal services, including the already financially stretched public sector”.

Another matter which should be considered is the regulation of in-house service provision. Local authority in-house legal teams looking at how best to support front line service delivery in a cost-effective manner have considered shared service models. “One local authority engaged with the Law Society in 2019 in an attempt to obtain its approval, within the parameters of the 1980 and 2010 Acts and the Practice Rules, to permit the use of a corporate entity wholly owned by public sector bodies to deliver legal services to those public sector bodies as a shared service. The Society was unable to consent to its request.

“The council views the current regulatory landscape as being unnecessarily complex and restrictive in relation to the provision of shared legal services for public sector bodies… The council believes that the bill needs to be amended to exclude inhouse/public sector shared service arrangements from what constitutes a legal service provider, or a legal business as defined by the bill. This would prevent the shared service entity being subject to rules and safeguards which are otherwise necessary for the protection of the public and other consumers of legal services and is appropriate bearing in mind that in-house legal teams do not provide legal services to the public.”

The full response is on the Parliament’s website