Scottish Property Enquiry Certificates

Posted by John on December 8, 2011 under Scottish Conveyancing | Comments are off for this article

A property Enquiry Certificate (PEC) is a document used in Scottish conveyancing that provides essential information about the status of a property.  It lets you know if there are any proposals, legal orders or notices that would affect the property before you buy it. The information contained in the PEC is collated from the publicly available records and is based on recommendations from bodies like the Law Society of Scotland and the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

The PEC confirms the status of a property from its original records and the information contained in it is required for property transactions. Usually, it will be organised by the seller’s solicitor as part of their conveyancing activities.

A PEC will normally cover the following areas:

• Planning – Current and historic Planning Application information including decision, date and proposal, the search period being the 5 years immediately prior to the date of the request. Information is provided on Local Plan policy and other constraints and includes, for example, whether the property is designated as a Listed Building or Scheduled Ancient Monument, in a Conservation Area, whether it is within any international, national or local Natural Environment designations, and whether a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) affects the site or if the site is subject to an enforcement notice.

• Building Warrant – This refers to the recent decisions on application for the property. The search period being again the 5 years immediately prior to the date of the request.

• Roads information – Information derived from a search of the Statutory List of Public Roads relating to whether the road access is adopted by the Council for maintenance purposes and if the property is affected by any transport proposals. Information is provided relating to future road schemes.

• Statutory notices – If a property is the subject of an Improvement Grant or a Repairs Grant affected by Building Regulations.

• Environmental Health – Information about Smoke Control Areas, Private Housing, Contaminated Land, Radon Gas and Notices in terms of the Civic Government and Environmental Protection Act. An additional service is offered for some Commercial Premises.

• Water and drainage – Information from Scottish Water on whether public water mains and sewers are actually connected to the property. (Optional)

• Contaminated land – Information on whether land is in the Contaminated Land register.

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