What Is in an Auction Legal Pack in Scotland? (2026)
- What a legal pack is, and who puts it together
- Why a Scottish legal pack is not an English one
- What is actually inside a Scottish auction legal pack
- Articles of roup and the special conditions that cost you money
- Why many Scottish auction lots have no Home Report
- Eight checks to make before you bid
- What a solicitor charges to review a legal pack
- What sellers need to provide, and when
- How we handle legal packs
What a legal pack is, and who puts it together
When a property is entered into an auction, the seller's solicitor assembles the legal documents a buyer would normally receive over several weeks of conveyancing and publishes them up front. That bundle is the legal pack. The auctioneer makes it available to registered bidders before the sale, usually as a download, sometimes on request.
The reason it exists is timing. On an open-market sale in Scotland, a buyer offers first and their solicitor investigates the title afterwards, adjusting the missives as questions are answered. At auction there is no afterwards. The contract is formed when the hammer falls, so all the investigating has to happen before you bid. The legal pack is what makes that possible.
Why a Scottish legal pack is not an English one
Search for guidance on auction legal packs and you will find a great deal of it, almost all written for England and Wales. It talks about the Title Register and Title Plan from HM Land Registry, restrictive covenants, easements, leasehold management packs and TA6 property information forms. None of those are Scottish documents. Scotland has its own property law, its own registers and its own vocabulary, and a buyer working from English guidance will look for things that are not there and miss things that are.
The practical consequence matters more than the terminology: an English conveyancer cannot act for you on a Scottish purchase. If you are bidding on a lot in Scotland, the pack needs to be read by a solicitor qualified in Scots law.
| What English guides call it | The Scottish equivalent | Why the difference matters |
|---|---|---|
| Title Register and Title Plan (HM Land Registry) | Title sheet in the Land Register of Scotland, held by Registers of Scotland, or the older Sasine writs for property not yet on the Land Register | Older Scottish properties may still be registered in the General Register of Sasines, where the extent of ownership is described in words rather than shown on a map, so boundaries need more careful checking |
| Restrictive covenants | Real burdens, governed by the Title Conditions (Scotland) Act 2003 | Burdens can control use, alterations, maintenance shares and access, and can be enforceable by neighbours |
| Charge or mortgage on the register | Standard security | This is the lender's security over the property, and it must be discharged at settlement for you to get clean title |
| Local authority searches | Property Enquiry Certificate, plus a legal report on the registers | The PEC draws on local authority records for planning, building standards, statutory notices, roads and water and drainage |
| Exchange of contracts, then completion | Articles of roup signed at auction, then settlement on the date of entry | In Scotland the auction contract binds on the fall of the hammer, with no exchange stage to renegotiate in |
| Leasehold management pack | Rarely applicable; residential flats in Scotland are owned outright, with a factor and common repairs regime instead | Long ultra-leases were largely converted to ownership by the Long Leases (Scotland) Act 2012, so what you check is factoring and common repair liability, not a lease |
What is actually inside a Scottish auction legal pack
Packs vary between auctioneers and between lots. A tidy residential flat may produce a slim pack, a repossession or a commercial lot a very thick one. The table below sets out what you should expect to find, and what it tells you.
| Document | What it is | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Title sheet or Sasine writs | Proof of who owns the property and on what terms | That the seller is the registered proprietor, or has the legal power to sell, and that the extent matches the lot description |
| Real burdens and conditions | Obligations written into the title | Use restrictions, alteration consents, maintenance obligations, access and servitude rights |
| Standard securities | Any lending secured over the property | How many there are, and confirmation each will be discharged at settlement |
| Property Enquiry Certificate | The local authority search | Statutory notices, unapproved alterations, whether the road and footpath are adopted, water and drainage status, listed building or conservation area status |
| Coal mining or other mining report | Ordered where the property sits in a former mining area | Common across the central belt, Fife and Ayrshire; the Coal Authority was rebranded the Mining Remediation Authority in November 2024 |
| Articles of roup and special conditions | The auction contract itself | This is the document that costs people money, and it is covered in its own section below |
| Factoring and common repairs paperwork | For flats and tenements | Outstanding common repair costs, the factor's terms, and any notice of potential liability for costs registered against the title |
| Planning, building warrant and completion certificates | Evidence that work was authorised | Missing warrants or completion certificates for extensions, conversions and window replacements |
| Indemnity policies | Insurance standing in for missing paperwork | What is actually covered, and whether the policy transfers to you |
| Tenancy paperwork | For an occupied lot | The tenancy type, rent, deposit scheme, notices served and whether the property is sold with vacant possession |
| Home Report or EPC | Often absent at auction | See the section below on why, and what it means for your risk |
Key takeaways
- The legal pack is the seller's disclosure, not the auctioneer's guarantee, and you are deemed to have read all of it when you bid.
- Scottish packs use a title sheet, real burdens, standard securities and articles of roup, not the English equivalents most guides describe.
- The special conditions of sale are where costs get shifted onto the buyer, so read that section first, not last.
- Many Scottish auction lots have no Home Report, because auction sales are exempt from the requirement.
- A solicitor's review typically costs a few hundred pounds and is the cheapest part of the whole transaction.
Articles of roup and the special conditions that cost you money
The articles of roup are the contract of sale at a Scottish auction. Bidding is treated as acceptance of them, and the successful bidder signs immediately. There is no cooling-off period and no equivalent of the English gap between exchange and completion in which to renegotiate. If you do not pay the balance when it falls due, you are in breach of contract and the financial consequences are serious, starting with the deposit.
Attached to the articles are the special conditions of sale, which are drafted for that particular lot. This is the part of the pack that most often surprises buyers, because it is where obligations are added to the price you bid. Commonly you will find some combination of the following.
- Search costs passed to the buyer. On an ordinary Scottish sale the seller pays for the searches. Auction special conditions frequently reverse that, and a buyer can expect to pick up a bill of roughly a couple of hundred pounds.
- The seller's legal fees. Some packs require the buyer to meet the seller's conveyancing costs on top of their own.
- An auction or administration fee. Separate from the price, and separate from any buyer's premium.
- Outstanding sums owed to a factor or the local authority. Arrears on common repairs or an unpaid statutory notice can become your problem once you own the property.
- A fixed date of entry you cannot move. The balance is typically due within 28 days, so your funding has to be genuinely in place.
None of these are unfair in themselves. They are disclosed, which is precisely the point of the pack. They are only a problem if you bid without reading them, and then discover that the lot you thought cost you the hammer price actually costs you several thousand pounds more. Add them up before you bid and treat the total as your real price. Our guide to what it costs to sell at auction in Scotland sets out the seller's side of the same equation, and modern method of auction fees in Scotland covers reservation fees, which work differently again.
Why many Scottish auction lots have no Home Report
Almost every residential seller in Scotland must provide a Home Report before marketing, containing a Single Survey with a valuation, an Energy Report and a Property Questionnaire. Auction sales are one of the exemptions, which is why a great many Scottish auction packs contain neither a Home Report nor an EPC.
For a seller that is a genuine saving and one less delay. For a buyer it removes the single most useful document in Scottish residential conveyancing, and it shifts condition risk squarely onto you. You are deemed satisfied with the condition of the property when you bid, so if you want a survey you need to arrange it in advance, and you need the auctioneer's help to get access. Where a lot is uninhabitable, fire-damaged or derelict, no Home Report is what you should expect. Where a lot is an ordinary habitable house and there is still no Home Report, that is worth a question rather than an assumption.
Eight checks to make before you bid
- Confirm the seller can actually sell. Check the title sheet names them, or that an executor, trustee or insolvency practitioner has the power to sell. Our guides to executry sales and insolvency sales explain those routes.
- Match the boundaries to the lot. Compare the title extent with the photographs and the description, particularly for land, garden ground, parking and outbuildings.
- Read the real burdens. Look for anything that blocks what you intend to do with the property, such as a restriction on subdivision, short lets or commercial use.
- Add up the special conditions. Searches, seller's legal fees, auction fees and arrears, converted into a single number.
- Check the statutory notices on the PEC. An outstanding local authority notice is a liability attached to the building, not to the previous owner's conscience.
- For a flat, check the factoring position. Ask what common repairs are proposed or in progress, and look for a notice of potential liability for costs registered against the title.
- Check warrants and completion certificates. Unauthorised alterations are a common reason a resale or remortgage later stalls, and an indemnity policy is not always the answer.
- Line up your money before the sale, not after. The balance is usually due within 28 days, which is faster than most mortgage offers. See auction finance and bridging loans in Scotland.
One more thing that is easy to forget in the excitement of a sale day: risk normally passes to the buyer at the date of entry, so buildings insurance needs to be arranged to start then rather than whenever you get round to it.
What a solicitor charges to review a legal pack
Legal-pack review is a discrete piece of work, and most firms will quote a fixed fee for it. UK guidance and legal-pack review services put a residential review in the region of £300 to £600 plus VAT, with one review service citing an average of around £429 plus VAT, and rush turnarounds costing more. Scottish firms quote in broadly the same territory. Always ask for the fee in writing and give the solicitor as much notice as you can, because a same-day reading of a thick pack costs more and reads less carefully.
| Item | Indicative 2026 position | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Solicitor's legal-pack review | Roughly £300 to £600 plus VAT | Fixed fee work; more for a complex commercial or multi-title lot |
| Rush or same-day review | Add a premium | Avoidable by starting a week before the sale |
| Searches, where passed to the buyer | Around £200 | Only if the special conditions shift them; check first |
| Survey, where you want one | Quote-dependent | No Home Report usually means no survey unless you commission it |
| Full conveyancing on the purchase | Separate fee | The review fee is not the whole job |
Set against a five or six figure purchase you cannot withdraw from, this is the cheapest insurance in the process. If you would rather not pay for a review on a lot you might not win, at least read the special conditions yourself, and speak to a solicitor about anything you do not understand. You do not get through a Scottish property transaction without a solicitor in any case.
What sellers need to provide, and when
If you are the one selling, the pack is your responsibility and your solicitor prepares it. The single biggest cause of a lot being pulled or a sale unravelling afterwards is a pack that arrives late or arrives incomplete, because bidders who cannot read the documents in time simply do not bid. Getting the title, any factoring paperwork, warrants and completion certificates to your solicitor early is the most useful thing you can do.
Julie McAndrews, founder of Scotland Property Auction, puts it plainly: "The packs that sell well are the honest ones. If there is a missing building warrant or an outstanding common repair, put it in the pack and let people price it. Buyers discount uncertainty far more heavily than they discount a known problem, and a problem discovered after the hammer is how sales fall apart."
Much of what goes into a pack overlaps with the ordinary selling file, so our guide to the paperwork you need to sell a house is a sensible starting checklist, whichever route you take.
How we handle legal packs
Every lot we take is published with its legal pack available to registered bidders before the sale, so that everyone bidding is working from the same disclosed facts. That is not a courtesy, it is what makes an auction sale hold together: a buyer who knew about the burden, the notice and the missing warrant before they bid has no reason to renegotiate afterwards, and no grounds to.
If you are buying, read our full guide to buying at auction in Scotland. If you are selling and want to know what your property would realistically achieve, you can get a free valuation in 60 seconds or read how selling at auction works. Unfamiliar terms are explained in our Scottish property terms glossary.
Founder & Director of Scotland Property Auction. Julie has spent over a decade helping Scottish homeowners, landlords and executors sell property quickly at auction — covering Home Reports, missives, repossession and the modern method of auction.
More about Julie →✔ Last reviewed June 2026 by Julie McAndrews. We keep our guides current with Scottish property law and market conditions.