Notice of Potential Liability to Repair
Owners are responsible for paying for repairs from the time a properly agreed decision to go ahead with work is reached. However, if an owner sells and moves, it may be difficult to contact them and to get them to pay for their share of repair costs.
You can overcome this problem by serving a 'Notice of Potential Liability for Repairs'. This notice makes the selling owner and the new owner jointly responsible for the repair costs. Any owner in the same building, or your property manager, can serve this notice.
You need to serve this notice through Registers of Scotland. The cost of registering the notice is £60 per flat and needs to be lodged at least 14 days before the sale takes place. The notice lasts for three years, but can be renewed. It can only be served by another owner in the same building or the property manager.
You may need to get legal help to lodge a notice like this as the accompanying registration documents are complicated.
If you are working well with existing owners, you are advised to discuss the use of this safeguard with them first.
Some property managers also use this notice as a way of enforcing repairs as it means costs can be recovered on sale of the flat.
Legal reference
Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 s13
Next steps