We continue our series of news stories from the Working Group on Maintenance of Tenement Scheme Property and specifically its report, which was presented to the Scottish Government.
We reported previously that the Group made three principal recommendations covering Building Inspections, Owners’ Associations and Building Reserve Funds, specifically:
- Communal property of all tenements should be inspected every five years with a report prepared that will be publicly available to existing or prospective owners, tenants and neighbours.
- Establishing compulsory Owners’ Associations as an essential element of tenement maintenance by providing leadership, and effective decision-making processes.
- Setting up Building Reserve Funds used for communal maintenance.
The Scottish Government committed to responding to the Report and recommendations and they have now published a series of actions in their Workplan for 2021. The actions which have recently been published include:
- Engagement with the Scottish Law Commission with a view to referring the recommendations to them to carry out a law reform project.
- Support development of good practice for maintenance and repair of tenement property and to encourage owners to set-up their own Associations by creating a tenement owners’ association toolkit.
- Commission research to determine the make-up of tenement ownership and to inform how this may affect the viability and establishment of Owners’ Associations.
- Commission research on repair costs and how to set levels of contributions to Building Reserve Funds.
- Engagement with tenement owners on the potential for compulsory property factoring services and any workable alternatives.
- Engagement with property factors on the provision and affordable compulsory factoring.
- Develop proposals to include a tenement condition report as part of improvements to Home Reports.
In addition, as part of The Scottish Government’s Housing Strategy generally, during 2021 they intend to:
- Publish a public consultation on changes to the Tolerable Standard, the Basic Standard for all housing and the Scottish Government guidance that supports this Standard.
- Circulate draft guidance for private landlords on changes to the repairing standard which will come into force in 2024.
At Hacking and Paterson Management Services, we have been calling for these significant housing improvements for many years, which will assist all homeowners with preserving their tenement property.
