Chamber and committees

For historical reasons Edinburgh City Council had local powers to enforce repairs under Part 6 of the City of Edinburgh District Council Order Confirmation Act 1991. Since 2009 all local authorities have had discretionary powers to require owners to carry out work to repair homes or to plan maintenance. We have established a stakeholder forum to consider whether there should be a new single condition standard for all housing tenures to support repairs to common parts in mixed tenure buildings.

Assistance for home owners is the responsibility of local authorities. Local authorities have a wide range discretionary powers to assist owners who need help to identify work needed to look after their home.

If occupants are private tenants, the landlord is required to carry out an inspection before the tenancy begins to ensure that the house complies with the repairing standard under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006. Information about a landlord’s duties, what documents should be provided, and tenant’s rights is set out in the statutory tenant information pack.

If occupants are social tenants, the Scottish Social Housing Charter requires their landlord to provide information about its decisions and services, to ensure homes meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard and to keep them in a good state of repair.

The Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011 came into force on 1 October 2012 and provides protections for homeowners who use the services of a registered property factor. The Act introduced a code of conduct which sets out minimum standards of practice which all registered property factors are obliged to comply with.

A requirement of the code is that the property factor must provide the homeowner with a written statement of services provided. This written statement of services should include the basis on which a homeowner can end their service arrangement.

Homeowners who are unhappy about the service provided by their property factor can apply to have their case considered by the Homeowner Housing Panel which can issue legally-binding property factor enforcement orders. Before doing this the homeowner should raise the matter with the factor directly and follow the factor’s own internal complaints procedure.

Information on appointing or dismissing a factor is also available in paragraph 3.3.5 of the Scottish Government publication Common Repair, Common Sense: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Justice/law/17975/CommonRepair-CommonSense/Managingthetenement.

The Scottish Government is also preparing a public-facing guide for homeowners on the provisions of the Title Conditions (Scotland) Act 2003 on the dismissal and replacement of property factors.

The Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011 came into force on 1 October 2012 and provides protections for homeowners who use the services of a registered property factor.

The current legislation has been operating for just over three years and no review has taken place to date. There are also no current plans to review the Act, but a review of the code of conduct for registered property factors established under the Act is planned to start in 2016. The code sets out minimum standards of practice which all registered property factors are obliged to comply with.

We will engage with property factors and homeowners so that they can play a key role in the review and developing any revised code of conduct. Any revised code would also be subject to public consultation and approval by the Scottish Parliament. We are also happy to work with the industry and others with a view to identifying any other ways to strengthen the Act.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of number of registered landlords living outwith the UK nor the proportion by which this has changed since the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 came into force.

The statutory scheme of land registration is set out in the Land Registration etc. (Scotland) Act 2012, which came into effect on 8 December 2014. A person affected by a fraudulent disposition that has been registered may request rectification of the register. The keeper will be able to rectify the register where there has been a fraudulently granted deed, unless the property has subsequently been transferred to a third party who acquired it in good faith. If the register cannot be rectified then the victim of the fraud may be entitled to monetary compensation from the keeper for the value of their loss.

If any owner refuses to pay his or her share of repairs, the obligation to pay can be enforced in the sheriff court by any owner or anyone authorised by an owner or owners. The Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 introduces new discretionary powers for local authorities to pay missing shares on behalf of owners who are unwilling or unable to comply with decisions made by the majority of other owners. We will further consider common repairs in the work of the stakeholder forum on a common housing standard.

Registers of Scotland (RoS) does not currently publish Freedom of Information (FOI) responses on its website. However, RoS plans to introduce a disclosure log of FOI information to its publication scheme in spring 2016 in line with best practice guidance.

The Tenements (Scotland) 2004 came into force on 28 November 2004 with the exception of section 18 (obligation of owner to insure) which came into force on 27 January 2007. The first available statistics on the private rented sector following the enforcement of the legislation relate to March 2005 and the most recent statistics available are as at March 2014.

Figures published in the Scottish Government Housing Statistics for Scotland 2015: Key Trends Summary show that the private rented sector grew by an estimated 74%, from 215,000 dwellings in March 2005 to 375,000 in March 2014.

The keeper has robust measures in place to minimise the effects of fraud, and keeps them under review. She has a designated fraud officer responsible for implementing her fraud prevention and mitigation policies, and for delivering regular staff training. Her staff are encouraged to refer suspicious applications to the fraud officer. In order to aid earlier detection, the keeper meets with other bodies such as the Law Society of Scotland, the Council of Mortgage Lenders, Police Scotland and Revenue Scotland. She also maintains communications with other land registries both in the UK and internationally to monitor trends.

The reply to S4W-30417 on 17 March 2016 sets out the process for fraud discovered after registration. If an allegation of fraud is made before an application for registration has been determined then the keeper will apply her policy on holding applications in abeyance as set out in Registers Update 42 (issued in December 2014).

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.