What is the Law in Your Life?

5 things you need to know about Keeper Induced Registration:

1.   In terms of The Land Registration etc (Scotland) Act 2012 ("the Act"), the Keeper of the Land Register is entitled to induce registration of title to properties in the Land Register. This is known as Keeper Induced Registration ("KIR) and is supplementary to the registration of title by way of transfer of title or by voluntary registration.

2.  The Keeper has accepted an obligation to complete the Land Register by 2024. This is an ambitious target. KIR will be used to help accelerate the programme of registration of title. Registers of Scotland will engage with the legal profession, local authorities and agencies such as citizens advice bureaux in a particular area before KIR happens for that area. Individual landowners will be notified once their title has been brought onto the Land Register.

3.   Initially, KIR will only be used in 3 Land Register Research Areas: Carnoustie Edinburgh (Murrayfield); Glasgow (Bearsden). KIR will then be rolled out across the country in appropriate circumstances.

4.   Where a title is transferred to the Land Register by KIR, the owner will not incur any of the costs of the transfer. All work will be undertaken by the Keeper''s staff. The owner will receive a letter informing him/her that the title is to be registered using KIR and will be asked to confirm a few facts as summarised in a letter from the Keeper. An obvious example of where KIR will be useful is where the title to say, 5 out of 8 flats in a tenement block are registered in the Land Register but the other 3 titles are not. It will be expedient and beneficial for the remaining 3 titles to be registered.

5.   A title registered using KIR will, to all intents and purposes, look like a title registered in the normal way under the Act. It will be a facsimile of the title which is, at that time, recorded in the Register of Sasines. The Keeper will bear the costs of registration and so there will be no additional cost to a homeowner.  The owner will benefit from a state-backed guaranteed title.  There will be no erosion of rights for homeowners whose titles are brought onto the Land Register by the KIR process itself.

What is the Law in your Life?

5 things you need to know about Dilapidations in Leases:

1.   Although the obligation to repair/renew a property leased from a landlord may differ from lease to lease, the tenant in all cases will have an obligation to return the property in an appropriate condition at the end of the lease. In some cases, this will be by reference to a photographic Schedule of Condition prepared and agreed between the landlord and the tenant at the commencement of the lease.

2.   Most commercial leases entitle the landlord to enter the leased subjects in order to assess the state of repair at any given time during the lease term with the tenant being obliged to remedy any wants of repair identified in an interim Schedule  of Dilapidations.  Tenants are advised always to check such schedules to ensure that the works identified therein are really their obligation in terms of the lease.

3.   In principle, the rectification of dilapidations in a leased property is appropriate. Care should always be taken however to ensure that the works identified therein represent repairs rather than extra-ordinary repairs or improvements where such may not be  the responsibility  of the tenant.

4.   This, perhaps, is no more obvious than at the end of the term of a lease where what are called terminal dilapidations are identified by the landlord. Such schedules should be served timeously in terms of the lease and be examined carefully against what the lease states with regard to the tenant's obligation to reinstate the property to the condition it was in at the commencement of the lease. If available, the schedule should be assessed against a photographic record of the condition of the property as at the date of entry.

5.   In certain cases, the lease may provide for a payment to be made by the tenant to the landlord akin to the rent which the landlord would otherwise be entitled to receive if it was letting a unit in good tenantable condition and repair to a new tenant following the expiry of the former lease. If such a provision is in a lease, the tenant should seek to limit the period during which such a payment will be due.