PRG News
Home Reports - How they will affect you?
From 1st December 2008, Home Reports will be needed for every property put on the market. The Scottish Government's view is that the general public should have detailed information about the condition and value of the property, before an offer is made and expenditure incurred by any purchaser. The Home Report is also to include an energy efficiency report, which will advise purchasers on how to save money on energy bills, and provide a better appreciation of the environmental impact of individual homes.
Home Report Contents
The Home Report will comprise three separate documents:-
1. Property Questionnaire
The property questionnaire is completed by the seller of the home, where required with the assistance of their solicitor/estate agent. It contains information about the home which is useful for both buyers and surveyors.
2. The Single Survey
The Single Survey contains an assessment by a Surveyor of the condition of the home, a valuation element and an accessibility audit for people with particular needs.
3. The Energy Report
The Energy Report contains an assessment by the Surveyor of the energy efficiency of the home and its environmental impact. It will also recommend ways to improve its energy efficiency.
At PRG, we will be ensuring that with effect from 1 December 2008, we will have systems in place to ensure that your Home Report is available, at the same time as your home is first put on the market. We are ensuring that our systems are fully compliant with the new legislation, are easy to use and accessible to all.
As the seller, our clients will complete the property questionnaire, with our help wherever needed. The single survey and energy report will be completed by a Surveyor, instructed by us on your behalf.
We will then create an online Home Report for your property, once all the elements are complete. This can then be viewed by potential purchasers on request online, though a hard copy version can be ordered if required. We would ensure that you have an adequate supply of hard copy versions to have on hand for viewers.
If you would like further information about how the new regime will operate, please do not hesitate to contact one of our Property Managers Mairi Mitchell or Morven Smith or any oif our ssolicitors in any of our offices.
SCOTS WITCHCRAFT TRIAL ACCOUNTS TO GO UNDER THE HAMMER
An account of the last major witchcraft trial in Scotland is expected to make upwards of £75,000 at auction.
The trial and the burning of its five victims, accused of sorcery by an 11-year-old girl, is part of a set of four rare books on witchcraft, which will come under the hammer at Christie's, in New York, next month, The Times has reported.
In 1696, Christian Shaw, the daughter of the Laird of Bargarran, in Renfrewshire, accused three men and three women of "bewitching her" and "being in league with the! Devil".
Accounts differ as to whether Christian really felt she was bewitched, but her symptoms supposedly included body-arching spasms, flying and vomiting items such as coal and bent pins.
A Paisley minister called Blackwood was called in to investigate the claims of the girl. This led to six people being persuaded to confess to witchcraft.
Sentenced to death, one killed himself in prison while the other five were strangled and then burnt on the Gallowgreen in Paisley on June 10, 1697.
By the end of the century, the witch-craze was dying out, and judges like Sir George Mackenzie, the Lord Advocate, had begun denouncing the so-called "witch-prickers" as "villainous cheats".
The case is outlined in the booklet Sadducismus Debellatus, which was published in 1698 and attributed to Francis Cullen and Lord Grant.
LOCKERBIE: MEGRAHI REFUSED BAIL
The man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing will not be released on bail after his application was rejected by judges.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi had applied for interim liberation pending the outcome of an appeal.
However, Lord Hamilton, the Lord President, sitting with Lord Kingarth and Lord Wheatley at Edinburgh's Appeal Court rejected the request this morning.
The former Libyan intelligence agent, 56, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and the disease had spread to other parts of his body.
At a hearing last Thursday, three appeal judges in Edinburgh were told an "unusually compelling case" existed for re! leasing Megrahi on bail pending his appeal.
The court heard he was terminally ill and should be released on compassionate grounds.
Last month, he was taken from his prison cell in HMP Greenock under tight security to undergo tests at Inverclyde Royal Hospital in Greenock.
Megrahi's defence team at the Court of Criminal Appeal said he did not have long to live and should be released in order to reside with his family in Scotland while receiving medical treatment.
But the Crown Office argued the gravity and extraordinary circumstances of the offence meant he should remain in jail at HMP Greenock.
They told judges that the prognosis is "uncertain" and that Megrahi has access to the same medical treatment in jail as he would do outside.
Megrahi is serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 27 years for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988, which caused the deaths of 270 people.
He lost his original appeal in 2002, but was! given a fresh chance to clear his name in June last year when the Sco ttish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred his case back to appeal judges for a second time. His appeal is due to be heard next year.