Scottish Law Commission publishes discussion paper on Tenement law changes						

					

											
26 April 2024

									

			

					

	




    



    
        


            

                


                    

                        
The Scottish Law Commission (SLC) has published a Discussion Paper on Tenement law: compulsory owners’ associations. The Scottish Law Commission’s project follows from a reference under the Law Commissions Act 1965 received on 10 January 2022 from the (then) Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government (Shona Robison MSP). The reference asked the SLC to make recommendations to implement the Working Group’s recommendation that all tenements should have an owners’ association.


The Discussion Paper considers in detail:


    

  • The functions, powers and duties of the owners’ association, including the role of an association manager.
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  •  How decisions to exercise the powers of the owners’ association will be made by members, as well as how these decisions can be challenged.
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  • The liability of owners for costs, and the implementation of an annual budgeting system.
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  • Whether the court should be empowered to appoint a manager to run the owners’ association where owners have failed to keep it operational.
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  • Whether any types of tenements should be exempt from the scheme, and how the scheme could be disapplied from a tenement.
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  • How any new laws made to give effect to the scheme will interact with pre-existing title conditions.
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The Discussion Paper  sets out the provisional proposals for the introduction of owners’ associations. The paper seeks views on these proposals and asks a number of related questions.


The Commission is very keen to hear from everyone with an interest in the issues raised in the Discussion Paper. The consultation is open for comment until 1 August 2024.


More information is available here.


The SLC have also arranged two online webinars, at which Professor Frankie McCarthy (the lead Commissioner for the project) will talk through the most important aspects of the paper with a short opportunity for questions.


The webinars will take place on:



Registration is required to attend, but otherwise the webinars are free and open to all.


Each webinar will cover substantially similar material, so there is no need to attend both.