A Court of Session decision in the case of Patersons of Greenoakhill Limited v Biffa Waste Services Limited highlights the significance of getting contract clauses right first time. This case demonstrates that cost implications to businesses can potentially be significant when mistakes in drawing up clauses in commercial contracts are made.

Patersons operated a landfill site and also had a controlling shareholding in a waste collection business. Biffa sought to purchase the waste collection business.

Patersons proceeded with this transaction on the basis that Biffa

The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) has the power to apply the charity test as defined in the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 to review the charitable status of charities listed on the register. Does your organisation pass the charity test?

The five functions of OSCR as specified in law are to:

1. decide which bodies are?charities
2. keep an accurate Register?of charities
3. encourage, monitor and?facilitate compliance
4. identify and investigate apparent misconduct
5. inform and advise Scottish?Ministers

To maintain charitable status, charities must continue

S172 of the Companies Act 2006 states that a company director must:

"act in the way he considers, in good faith, is most likely to promote the success of the company for the benefit of its members as a whole"

When it was introduced, this section of the Act created a great deal of concern, was it a step too far in terms of directors' statutory duties?

However, it seems that the controversy surrounding this section was ill-founded, as we have been living with it

As family lawyers we are regularly asked the question: Can I change the locks on my spouse? This is probably one of the most common questions I am asked when dealing with a client's separation or divorce.

The short answer is no. Regardless of whose name the property is in, each spouse has the right to occupy the property. These rights are known in Scots Law as 'occupancy rights'.

The only way to legally exclude your spouse from the family home is by

The Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011 has shaken up the previously unregulated, and unstructured, property factoring regime in Scotland and has introduced the Property Factor's written services statement. Although the provisions within the Act came into force on 1 October 2012, it seems many organisations and individuals are playing "catch up" with how the changes affect them, including the Property Factor's written services statement.

Written Statement of Services

In addition to the Act itself, property managers must also comply with the Code of Conduct.

When it comes to debt recovery, a pursuer must obtain a payment decree from the Sheriff Court against a defender (debtor), and then take steps to enforce the decree in order to recover sums due.

One of a number of different procedures a pursuer can utilise,with a view to recovering an outstanding sum, is an inhibition.

• Once registered this prohibits a defender from selling, transferring or otherwise disposing of any land and other immoveable assets i.e. houses and commercial premises, until the debt is settled

Many landlords will have joint tenants, particularly in student flats. However recent legislation on tenancy deposit schemes and tenant information packs has highlighted some issues facing landlords with joint tenants in Scotland.

Tenancy Deposit Scheme

- The tenancy deposit scheme regulations say nothing about joint tenants

- It has been left up to each scheme to make the rules as to how they will deal with deposits for joint tenancies

- Each scheme requires?landlords to identify a lead tenant when submitting a deposit. This will

We are regularly asked for advice by landlords in Scotland on how to repossess a property that a tenant has abandoned. However, recently we were presented with a situation that was slightly more problematic where the tenant had abandoned the property and then sublet without consent!

There is no legal route to repossess a property where a tenant has abandoned, other than by seeking a court order. However, landlords generally wish to repossess sooner rather than later and may want to carry out an assessment

Our previous blog looked at the forthcoming bedroom tax impact on housing associations and offered some suggestions on minimising its impact.

Glasgow Advice Agency, an organisation which provides welfare rights and advice services across the South and North East of Glasgow, have recently obtained and published an opinion from Jonathan Mitchell, Q.C. 

In this blog, I will look at arguments that rooms of certain sizes should be left out of account.

The Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 contains provisions which relate to overcrowding.

The 'space standard'

There cannot be a single housing association which is not aware of forthcoming changes to housing benefit and the impact of the bedroom tax. These changes will see reductions in housing benefit to tenants who are deemed to be over-occupying. New rules will set out:

- The number of bedrooms which will be eligible for benefit

- If a tenant has one spare bedroom, then 14% of their benefit will be removed

- If they have two or more spare bedrooms, then their benefit will

In a previous blog about landlords' duties during the winter months, we highlighted the possible duty for landlords under the Occupiers Liability (Scotland) Act 1960 to ensure that they are gritting common areas.

Continuing the gritting common areas theme, a very interesting judgement has now been released in a sheriff court case. The case is Bonham v Pentland Housing Association.

-? Ms Bonham was a tenant of Pentland HA

-? In December 2009, she fell on the pavement area outside her home, breaking her

Owners have a duty to ensure that their own property and any common parts are adequately insured. The title deeds for your property will state whether or not you are obliged to take out a joint insurance policy with other owners to cover both your own property and/or common areas affecting a larger building. So do you need a common insurance policy in Scotland?

The level of insurance is generally its re-instatement value, namely the cost of re-building your home from scratch. The re-instatement value

LetLaw have had a number of Tenancy Deposit Scheme queries from landlords and agents regarding the Scottish Tenancy Deposit Scheme deadline, and in particular the rules relating to tenancies which started prior to 7 March 2011.

The Tenancy Deposit Schemes (Scotland) Regulations 2011 provide for different timescales for lodging deposits, depending on when the tenancy commenced and when it renews. Some landlords appear to be of the belief that as long as the deposit was received prior to 7 March 2011, then they have no

The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) were made aware of reports in the press about an alleged high value severance package agreed by the charity trustees of Glasgow East Regeneration Agency for the charity's Chief Executive when he was made redundant. What are the duties of charity trustees in Scotland?

OSCR's regulatory functions are set out in the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 (the Act) and include the requirements to encourage, facilitate and monitor compliance by charities and to identify and

Golden brick is a familiar term to housing associations in relation to development sites and taxation but how will they follow the golden brick road? So, where Dorothy discovered the Wizard was simply an ordinary man, what will housing associations' discover if they pull back the curtain for golden brick?

What is Golden Brick?

Housing Associations (HAs) are not generally able to recover VAT on rented properties and have limited recovery prospects for shared ownership schemes. As a result they will always seek to

In 2011 a review of workplace sickness absence was carried out by Dame Carol Black, the Government's national director for health and work, and David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce.

The Government has responded to that review by announcing that it will introduce a new independent assessment and advisory service in order to address sickness absence and get employees back to work.

This is likely to be in place by 2014. The service will offer a health assessment for employees who have

The law of Scotland on cohabitation rights provides that when an unmarried couple who live together separate, then one or either of the former partners may make a financial claim on the other.  There remain differences between this regime and the applicable system when spouses divorce and they should not be viewed as one and the same. This is in stark contrast to the law of England where only married couples may seek financial provision from a spouse. The law when it first came into

Following their introduction in the Private Rented Housing (Scotland) Act 2011, the Scottish Government announced that Scottish tenant information packs will arrive on the 1^st May 2013. From that date, a landlord will be required to provide the tenant with standard documents no later than the date on which the tenancy starts, as specified in the Tenant Information Packs (Assured Tenancies) (Scotland) Order 2013.

In particular landlords will require to provide tenants with the following documents:-

• a copy of the tenancy agreement
• where the

We are frequently asked by landlords can other owners be forced to maintain their property. One common issue is where persistent leaks from one property cause water ingress and damage to another. This can be where one or both of the properties are being let.

Unfortunately, landlords in this situation are limited in what they can do to prevent further leaks arising. You can put pressure on the owner to carry out repairs swiftly and by a qualified contractor. However, often repairs aren't carried out

Landlords are increasingly turning to the internet to conduct their letting business. A major part of that is the issue of signing tenancy agreements online. Most landlords would be keen to have this option particularly if there is no face to face contact between landlord and tenant. However, the law in Scotland has not quite caught up with the rest of the world and as such there is some doubt whether tenancy agreements signed online are legal.

In Scotland, tenancy agreements require to be 'self-proving'.