We have updated a number of our precedents this month and thought it would be useful to highlight some of the of what has changed:
Certificate of title
The City of London Law Society made some minor changes to the Eighth edition of the certificate of title in January 2025 and accordingly we have replicated these in the PSG certificate of title based on the CLLS certificate of title.
As a result of the changes, the certificate is re-named the PSG Certificate of Title (based on the CLLS Certificate of Title (Eighth Edition 2025 Update)). The documents that accompany the certificate (i.e. the confirmation letters, questionnaire and supplemental enquiries) apply equally to the Eighth Edition 2025 Update as they do to the Eighth Edition 2023. The 2025 changes do not affect those documents. Full details of the 2025 changes can be found in the PSG Guidance Notes for the Certificate of Title.
Minute of variation of lease
We decided that it would be helpful to incorporate a rent review clause in the Minute of variation of lease for those situations where the lease being varied does not currently include a rent review clause. We had originally included a note on how to do this in the document but felt that including a style rent review clause taken from one of the PSG leases as a new part of the schedule to the Minute would be more useful. The rent review provisions contained in the new part 3 of the schedule are taken from the PSG Lease based on the Model Commercial Lease of Whole Building (Office) (MCL–OFFICE–01) Version 1.7. See the Guidance Notes for further detail. As always client instructions and valuation advice should be taken as appropriate prior to the incorporation of these provisions.
Register of Insolvencies
Following a systems failure at the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s Register of Insolvencies (RoI) in December 2024 it came to light that not all the private searchers were providing a search in the RoI as part of their legal reports where the proprietor was a company. Following discussions with the searchers, Millar & Bryce, First Scottish and Property Searches Scotland, they now include a search in the RoI in all legal reports. We have updated all the PSG offers to include the delivery of a search in the RoI in the updated legal report at completion.
Mining Remediation Authority replaces the Coal Authority
The Coal Authority changed its name to the Mining Remediation Authority on 28 November 2024 to better reflect the organisation’s expanded role in managing the effects of historical mining. Although we understand the Authority will still trade as the Coal Authority in providing coal reports, we have changed references in our documents to refer to the Mining Remediation Authority (trading as the Coal Authority). This affects the offers to sell, offer to grant a lease, the certificate of title and the due diligence questionnaire.
Electronic extracts
With the introduction of electronic extracts, we had amended our leases and lease management documents to allow for the delivery of an electronic extract as an alternative to a certain number of paper extracts. This however resulted in users having to amend the documents each time to select the appropriate option and delete lots of square brackets. So instead, we have provided that the registering party will obtain an electronic extract, where possible, otherwise an extract for each of the Parties. This avoids the need to adjust the drafting in each transaction and means that when electronic extracts of wet ink signed deeds are introduced, the documents will not need to be amended again.