Edinburgh is unique as a local government area in that it has private legislation empowering the Council to serve demands on co-owners to carry out common repairs and in the absence of compliance from co-owners – for example the separate owners of a block of tenement flats – the Council is empowered to carry out the work themselves and to recover the costs from the co-owners thereafter.
Statutory Notice Payment Demands
An increasingly common situation is that at the point of sale or purchase a search in the Council records indicates that one or more such invoices have been issued by the Council but the sums due have not been paid by the seller, or indeed in many cases, a previous proprietor.
So, can the liability for such outstanding invoices be passed on by the Council to the purchaser or subsequent owner of an affected property?
The good news is that the owners of property, whether flats or houses, buying after a statutory notice payment demand has been served are not liable.
In addition, if the council don’t carry out the work then the liability of the owner at the time of notice runs out entirely after 20 years.
To discover how this might impact you, call us on 0131 622 9222.