House Buying Checklist

Buying a home is a huge decision – and there’s so much to consider. Once you’ve made the decision that you’d like to buy, consult our checklist and make sure that you’re fully prepared for the road ahead.

Can you afford it?

You’ll need to have enough money initially to cover the costs of a down payment, stamp duty (if the property is over £60,000) a solicitor, mortgage fees, survey fees, insurance and any extra costs of removals, storage etc. If you’re getting a mortgage, lenders will look at your earnings and expenses to decide whether you can afford to repay the amount you want to borrow. You also need to factor in maintenance costs, and any decorating, DIY and updating needed to the property.

Get a valuation and/or survey

The valuation is what helps the lender to decide if the property is structurally sound and worth the amount of money the buyer is asking for it.  In Scotland, the valuation report must be done before you market the property. Some lenders will require their own survey but they will organise and pay for it and this happens later in the process.

Find a mortgage lender

Once you know you can afford it, it’s time to shop around for deals and quotes. The property market is starting to pick up again and lenders are becoming keener to entice new buyers, so there are some good deals on offer if you know where to look.

Appoint a solicitor

Once you have found your dream property, you’ll need to appoint a solicitor to make an offer for it on your behalf. Your solicitor tells the seller’s solicitor that you are interested in buying the property. This is called ‘noting interest’.

Find out about any extra responsibilities

There are things to be aware of if you are thinking of buying into a tenement, a four-in-a-block, a terrace or a former council house. In some cases you might have to share part of your property, like the garden or stairway, with other owners.

If you are buying a former council property, responsibility for repairs could be shared with the local authority. Your solicitor should be able to tell you this, as common responsibilities are usually listed in your title deeds or the Burdens Section of your Land Certificate.

Top Five tips on writing a good will

Do you really need a will? Depending on your age, it might not be top of your list of priorities, but the resounding answer to that is yes, you do.

You might not think that a will is necessary in your case, perhaps you’re single with no children – but if you don’t make that will, and you have no surviving family, everything you own will go to The Crown. If you do have surviving relatives, not having a will can cause them no end of problems after you’ve gone.
Here are a few things to consider when you sit down to write your last will and testament…

Choose your executors carefully

Choose people who you know will be able to deal with the task of making sure your wishes are followed, especially if there is a lot of money at stake. It’s essential that you ask them first, too. Nobody wants to be in the awkward position of refusing after the event but some people just wouldn’t be comfortable with that level of legal responsibility.

If you’re married, you will probably want your husband of wife to be your executor, but if he or she is no longer alive, you need to think about a fall-back. It’s harsh, but often necessary.

Think about hiring a professional

You might think you don’t have a lot, but unless your estate really is very small, you’ll need advice. You can still pick up a kit from a high street store or online, but if you need advice, or if your estate and wishes are really complex, it really pays to involve legal professionals.

This will save stress after you die, avoid prohibitive legal fees that can be the result of a badly written DIY will, and also make sure that that your wishes are carried out to the letter. If you draft your own will, be very careful to follow the instructions precisely, and be extremely careful what you write.

Plan for your children

If you have children, make sure they are going to be looked out for after your death; and not just financially. You’ll need to appoint guardians for children under 18 to avoid the court appointing a guardian if anything should happen to both parents. There can be problems if parents aren’t married – the living parent won’t automatically be appointed guardian of their own children!

You and your partner will need to appoint each other as legal guardians just in case. You’ll also need to appoint a trustee for any minor children you might leave money to, and to administer any trusts you set up for them.

Consider the ‘leftovers’

The ‘leftovers’ are anything that’s left over in your estate after you specify who gets certain legacies. Legally they are called "residue" and you will need to decide who this should be left to, otherwise you’ll be stuck with a partial intestacy in your will, meaning you have no control over who will receive it.

Keep your will in a safe place

Once you’ve written and signed your will, you should make sure it’s stored in a proper storage facility. Your executors will have a certificate that tells them where this is, and how they can get it. Finally – make sure your will mentions the type of funeral you’d like, and any instructions about looking after pets.
For more advice and help on your will, contact Sturrock, Armstrong and Thomson.

Scottish Lawyers and Independence

While the country is still deciding on which way to vote, Scotland's legal profession has been thinking ahead to what a ‘Yes’ vote could mean for them. The Law Society of Scotland has insisted that untangling Scotland from over 300 years of being part of the United Kingdom wouldn’t be an issue.

Lorna Jack, chief executive of the Law Society, believes that Scottish legal expertise is such that there wouldn’t be a problem, and that Scottish proficiency in UK, international and constitutional law would stand Scottish lawyers in good stead when it came to tackling some of the issues that might arise from creating an independent Scottish state.

One legal firm – a firm that states it is neutral on the issue of independence - was quick to provide an analogy for the legal process that would follow a Yes vote, saying that it would be a very similar situation to those in the past where state owned industries like British Rail have been privatised. In effect, all that would happen is that something that was part of the UK state would be ‘externalised’ and all the interdependencies that were affected would have to be rearranged.

Recently, a group of pro-independence group of law practitioners and legal academics was established, called Lawyers for Yes. The group of over 100 academics and lawyers includes Fiona Cook and Jamie Kerr, both Scottish Labour Party members, Edinburgh University constitutional expert Professor Christine Bell;  Zenon Bankowski, professor emeritus of legal theory at Edinburgh University; and Aileen McHarg, professor of Public Law at Strathclyde University.

Other Scottish lawyers are resolutely against the Yes vote, such as Mike Dailly, a prominent lawyer who has recently been in the news after sending an abusive tweet to First Minister Alex Salmond.

Dailly, who is principal solicitor at Govan Law Centre and also sits on the board of the Scottish Housing Regulator, was forced to apologise after tweeting his opinions directly to Alex Salmond, as the tweet was picked up by the media and criticised.

He has now apologised "unreservedly" to the first minister, who has accepted his apology.

Here at Sturrock Armstrong and Thomson, along with everyone else in Scotland, we can only wait and see what September 18 will bring. As the latest polls show that the gap between a 'Yes' and a 'No' vote is rapidly closing, it’s anybody’s guess whether Scotland will still be part of the UK for years to come.

A ban on foreigners buying Scottish land?

A report published in June by the Land Reform Review Group has recommended that a maximum limit be set on the amount of Scottish land that could be held by a single private owner or beneficial interest, and there was also a call for a ban on non EU ownership of Scottish land. The ban would potentially enable more land to become available for community use, boosting community land ownership across the country.

Legal experts have said that they think the idea could well be unworkable, pointing out that some of the report’s recommendations could even fall under the widely anticipated Community Empowerment Bill, which aims to free up land owned by the Scottish government for purchase by communities.

The report suggested a number of ways to improve the diversity of land ownership in Scotland, which is to be applauded, but could fall foul of the European Convention on Human Rights which enshrines the ‘right to property’.

With regard to keeping land in the community - the intention of freeing up under-used land to be used by local communities is commendable, but in practice, not only do the rights of the landowner have to be weighed up against the desires of a local community but where are these communities going to get the money from to fund all these potential purchases?

Restricting property sales to EU entities is also inherently tricky. It’s hard to disagree that increasing  the number and diversity of land owners in Scotland would be in the public interest but at what point should you step in and say that an entity owns ‘too much’ Scottish land?

Preventing inward investment into Scotland, through property or any other means, isn’t going to do a lot to boost the Scottish economy, and the recommendation that we refuse to let non EU nationals register their purchases on our Land Registry is difficult to imagine working in practice.

On a positive note, Scottish environment minister Paul Wheelhouse said that he agreed with the Land Reform Review Group that it was necessary to get a ‘clear understanding’ of who owns Scottish land, and pointed out that the Land Registration (Scotland) Act, which was doe to be implemented in December this year, should go some way to increasing the speed at which the current land registry process is being completed.

For advice on how any changes to legislation might affect you, contact the experts at Sturrock, Armstrong and Thomson.

Cancer Research UK Free Will Service

Cancer is something that touches most of us at some point in our lives. The sobering facts are that every two minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with cancer and more than one in three people in the UK will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime.

For this reason, we at Sturrock, Armstrong and Thomson are committed to doing our bit to help. We’ve teamed up with Cancer Research UK to take part in their own Free Will Service, which is currently running. This free service is available to anyone over the age of 55 who would like to write a new simple will, or mirror will, or update an existing one. We can also give you advice on how to leave a legacy to Cancer Research UK.

There’s no requirement to leave a donation or gift to Cancer Research UK if you decide to use their Free Will Service; that decision is completely up to you. Most people do choose to leave something to the charity in their will, though, even if it’s just a small amount. Any money left to this vital cause will go towards finding ways to treat, cure and prevent cancer in the future, so if you do decide to leave a donation, you’ll be helping future generations beat this often devastating disease.

If you’d like to find out more about the service, please contact us to arrange a consultation and make sure that you explain you’d like to use our free will service.

We offer a convenient way to update or write your will. All you need to do before you attend your appointment with us is decide on who you’d like to include in your will, and whether you would like to leave anything to Cancer Research UK. If you decide that you would like to leave a gift, you can specify the type of cancer you would prefer the gift to be used for (if you want to) and you can even specify a particular part of the UK you want the donation to be used in.

You’ll also need to download and complete the Free Will Service form, and bring it along to your appointment.

Once you’re happy with the will, we invoice Cancer Research UK on your behalf, so you won’t have to worry about paying anyone and claiming the money back.

For the Cancer Research UK guide to making a Will, click here

Trams bring property price rises to Edinburgh!

If you’re thinking of selling your house in the near future, you may be able to thank Edinburgh’s tram line for an increase in its value; according to predictions, prices are expected to rise by up to 15 per cent for properties within a one-mile radius of the tram route between Edinburgh airport and York Place.

If your home is within an 800-metre walking distance of a tram stop you’re likely to benefit from an even bigger increase in the value of your property. Even further away, you could still expect to see a small rise in property value, as homeowners within two miles are also hoping for a long term improvement.

Edinburgh estate agents and homeowners are hoping that property price increases in the city will be along the lines of those in Dublin after trams were introduced in 2004. The boom in property prices there also led to more transport development, and more extensions to the tram route, part-funded by property developers. If the same happens in Edinburgh, we could potentially see a tram extension down Leith Walk despite this currently being ruled out due to lack of funding.

There are already encouraging signs of a tram-led property price hike - six deals worth around £100m were signed on Princes Street at the end of last year. Commercial land along the route is already beginning to see the ‘tram effect’ - last December, a  60,000 sq. ft. building and a 48-acre plot on the Gyle, where there are expected to be three tram stops, were sold for £15m, a cool £5m more than agents had expected when offers were invited in 2012.

Other transport projects which may also impact on the value of property in Edinburgh include the development of the Borders Railway line, which is the longest rail reopening project in modern British history. The development is making transport into Edinburgh for areas which have until recently only been reachable by bus and private car much easier, and more affordable. It costs less than £10 to travel the 30-mile route between Waverley and Tweedbank.

The areas most likely to benefit from the tram are Haymarket, Balgreen, Stenhouse, Bankhead and Ingliston. The biggest increases are likely to be in modest two or three-bedroom houses which are favoured by  people who need to commute to the city centre and want to escape the stress of the traffic jams on the way into work (and the parking charges once they have arrived!)

For friendly and approachable advice on residential conveyancing and estate agency, contact Sturrock, Armstrong and Thomson.

Make a Will Month - What will you leave?

Your last will and testament – it’s generally regarded as a bit of a dry subject, and in fact it’s something that many people don’t even think about, with a 2013 survey revealing that almost half of adults in the UK don’t have a will.

Although nearly 72 per cent of over 55s have made a will, the numbers of young adults (18-24) who have made one is very low, although encouragingly the percentage has risen from 5.2 per cent in 2012 to 10.9 per cent in 2013.

You might think you have little to leave – but you would be surprised at what people have left behind as their last will and testament in the past….here are a few of our favourite examples.

William Shakespeare

Died: 1616

William Shakespeare famously asked that his wife, Anne Hathaway, received his ‘second best bed’ after his death. Leaving a bed to someone wasn’t terribly unusual at the time, as beds were expensive, but his insistence on only the second best bed being left to his wife was taken so seriously, along with this epitaph “Blest be the man that spares these stones, / And cursed by he that moves my bones,” that nobody dared bury Anne next to him when she died seven years later.

Benjamin Franklin

Died: 1790

On the face of it, Franklin’s last wish that his daughter did not engage in “the expensive, vain and useless pastime of wearing jewels,” may have sounded odd. There was a reason for it, though - in his role as French Ambassador, he had been given a portrait of King Louis XVI in a diamond-studded frame. He didn’t want Sarah to remove the 408 gems and turn them into jewellery, so made the proviso in a bid to keep the artwork intact.

Harry Houdini

Died: 1926

You would probably expect Houdini to come up with something unusual for his will. He did. He asked his wife to hold an annual séance so that he could reveal himself to her. He’d spent years trying to contact his mother via mediums and spiritualists and had no luck, but left his wife a secret note with 10 random words that he planned to somehow communicate to once he had passed on. She tried every Halloween for ten years but apparently, Houdini stayed mysteriously quiet…

Napoleon Bonaparte

Died: 1821

Napoleon’s rather bizarre last wish was that after he died, his head should be shaved and his hair divided up among his friends. The hair he left behind was recently analysed and it was found to contain high levels of arsenic; he showed signs of arsenic poisoning before his death.

John Bowman

Died: 1891

Determined to return one day, John Bowman asked that his dinner to be prepared every night after his death, just in case he was reincarnated. He set up a trust to pay for the housework in his 21 room mansion to be carried out, obviously wanting a tidy home to return to. The trust ran out of money in 1850 but there was no sign of his return…

Sturrock, Armstrong and Thompson offer a free initial consultation for anyone wishing to make a Will, as well as very competitive fees.

If you need advice and assistance with making wills, setting up trusts and administering estates contact them today.