Not a regional variation

How we work

Three differences worth knowing first

People arriving from England usually assume Scottish property works the same way with different postcodes. It does not. Scotland has its own legal system, and on property the divergence is substantial enough that acting on English assumptions will cost someone money. The first difference arrives before a home is even advertised: most residential property cannot be marketed for sale here without a Home Report, containing a single survey with a valuation, an energy report, and a property questionnaire the seller fills in. The seller commissions and pays for it, and a buyer reads a professional survey before deciding whether to offer at all. In England that survey is the buyer's own cost, obtained after an offer is already on the table.

The second difference is when you become committed. There is no exchange of contracts in Scotland. A contract for heritable property is constituted by the conclusion of missives, and from that moment both parties are bound. It arrives earlier in the process than an English buyer anticipates, and it is the structural reason gazumping is far less common here. The practical consequence is that a Scottish solicitor needs to be involved before an offer is made or accepted on your behalf, because by the time missives conclude the room for second thoughts has gone. We are not solicitors and we do not give legal advice, so that is a referral rather than a service.

The third sits in letting, and it is the largest. A private residential tenancy in Scotland is open ended. It has no fixed term and no expiry date, and there is no no-fault notice of the kind English landlords rely on, so recovering a property requires a statutory ground and an order from the First-tier Tribunal. Alongside it, a landlord must be registered with the local authority before letting at all, and the deposit deadline is counted in working days rather than calendar days. On the construction side the same front-loading applies: a building warrant has to be granted before work starts and a completion certificate accepted before occupation. All of which is why this company was set up to say the rules out loud. It was formed in July 2024 and has no long record to trade on, so being accurate about what applies is the thing it can offer from day one.