Conveyancing - What Happened in 2024?

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For the thirty-fourth successive year, this seminar will provide a comprehensive and indispensable review of the cases and statutory developments during the past 12 months which affect conveyancing law and practice. Don't just take our word for it, read reviews below from last year's seminar.

Must sellers disclose a neighbour’s planning application? Or their own infestation of Japanese knotweed? Can you erect a shed on common garden ground? What happens if you fail to intimate the assignation of a lease? Is property landlocked if it can only be accessed by sea? Does an access servitude extend to the road’s verges? Which conditions in a lease bind successors of the landlord? These are just some of the issues which came before the courts in the course of a busy year. 

There was also much else. Decisions on real burdens covered topics such as postponed starting dates, enforcement by implication by virtue of a common scheme, and extinction by prescription. There were cases on the constitution of servitudes by implication, constitution by prescription, and on obstruction of use. Among the topics litigated on commercial leases were the identification of the lease subjects and the failure on the part of a landlord to carry out repairs. Errors made on first registration, and the consequent claims for rectification of the Land Register, featured in numerous decisions of the Lands Tribunal. Other matters to attract the attention of the courts included standard securities, public access rights, ownership of the foreshore, positive prescription, residential leases, breach by property factors of the Code of Conduct, and professional negligence. 

So far as concerns conveyancing, the main statutory developments of 2024 were the Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Act 2024 and the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act 2024. Important Bills currently before the Scottish Parliament include the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill and the Housing (Scotland) Bill.

All these and other developments in the law will be discussed and evaluated during the seminar. There will also be a special Q&A session on Zoom in which we will answer questions submitted live or in writing, as well as deal with topics which we did not have time to cover in the main seminar. As always, a substantial set of materials will give the full text of the talks, and will also list and summarise all cases and statutory material from 2024. Each delegate will receive a copy of the revised materials when published in book form in the spring of 2025.

Speakers

Kenneth Reid, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law, George Gretton, Lord President Reid Professor of Law Emeritus, and Andrew Steven, Professor of Property Law, all at the University of Edinburgh.

Chaired by Alan Barr, partner at Brodies LLP and Honorary Fellow of the Law School, University of Edinburgh   

Learning Outcomes and Objectives

The learning outcomes and objectives are that by the end of the seminar delegates will have (i) a sound knowledge and understanding of all major developments in Conveyancing over the last 12 months; (ii) an appreciation of how these developments could or should influence their practice; and (iii) an indispensable set of source materials for easy reference following the seminar.