General and miscellaneous
Section 126 – Land attachment as heritable security
368.This section clarifies that a land attachment is not a heritable security for the purposes of the Heritable Securities (Scotland) Act 1894 and that the remedies of the creditor on default of the debtor under that Act are not therefore available to the creditor under a land attachment.
Section 127 – Statement on impact of land attachment
369.This section requires the Scottish Ministers to publish and to lay before the Scottish Parliament a statement of the impact that land attachment has had on debt recovery and homelessness.
370.Subsection (1) provides that this must be done within 15 months of the commencement of this Chapter of the Act. Subsection (2) sets out the information which the statement is required to include. Subsection (3) defines “homelessness” for the purposes of this section (by attracting the definition in the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987) to mean, effectively, lack of accommodation or lack of accommodation which it would be reasonable for the person involved to continue to occupy.
Section 128 – Interpretation
371.This section defines what is meant by expressions used in this Chapter. In particular, subsection (2) modifies the terminology used in relation to ownership and transfer of land so that it can be read as covering the equivalent terminology appropriate to attached land which is a long lease. Subsection (3) also provides the Scottish Ministers with power to modify the definitions of “decree” and “document of debt”. That power is exercisable by order subject to negative resolution procedure (see section 224(3)).
