News In Focus
29 June 2009
Clauses become more standard
Standard missives in Scotland have taken another major step forward with the signing of a common version agreed by representatives of Edinburgh and Glasgow conveyancers.
Following discussions by a joint working party which began work in March 2008, members of the Edinburgh Conveyancers Forum (ECF) and the Royal Faculty of Procurators in Glasgow (RFPG) have signed the declaration to which is attached the new standard form, to be known as the Combined Standard Clauses. The working party comprised three office holders of the ECF and two members of RFPG including the recently elected Dean, Paul Carnan.
The standard clauses in use in the two cities had already borrowed from each other, and four professors of conveyancing or property law (Professors Brymer, Reid, Rennie and Paisley, of Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities respectively), were on hand to arbitrate if there were areas of contention as to which style was to be preferred.
Few matters in the event required to be referred to the professors to adjudicate as there was very much a spirit of co-operation and give and take on both sides, according to the working party’s spokesman, Ian Ferguson of the RFPG. In fact the matter which took up the most discussion was the name to give the resulting common version.
The signing ceremony took place on 23 June and the Combined Standard Clauses are intended to go live on 1 October this year. Seminars are planned for both cities in advance of the starting date. There will also be a client guide and a practitioners’ guide.
As with the existing standard clauses, adoption is not obligatory – it is understood that while the Edinburgh style is in universal use in the capital, just over half of Glasgow practitioners use their current form – and the clauses can be modified as circumstances require.