Saving and transitional provision
Section 48: Tenancies: saving provision
181.This section makes saving provision to deal with notices that are served before 1 October 2022 (i.e. before the date of commencement of Part 4). This will affect eviction proceedings that are raised in relation to those notices even if the eviction proceedings themselves are only raised on or after 1 October 2022.
182.In all such cases, sections 43 to 47 of this Act will not apply. Instead, the law as modified by the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act 2020 and the Coronavirus (Scotland) (No.2) Act 2020 will continue in effect, despite the expiry of Part 1 of those Acts. Similarly, the Rent Arrears Pre-Action Requirements (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 will also continue to apply.
183.The result is that the existing temporary law on evictions will continue to apply to all pre-commencement eviction notices and all eviction proceedings raised in relation to those notices.
184.In most places, the provision made by this Act is the same as the existing temporary law. However, as set out above, some minor changes are made by this Act: for example, the pre-action protocol in section 47 applies to all rent arrears eviction grounds under the 1988 Act, not just one of them. Section 48 therefore ensures that if a notice is served by a landlord on the basis of the current law, the position that applies to the parties involved does not change.
Section 49: Tenancies: transitional provision
185.This section makes transitional provision to ensure that there is no gap between the revocation of the current pre-action requirements and the implementation of this Act’s replacement pre-action protocol, particularly in light of the relatively early dates for expiry of the current law and commencement of the new law.
186.The avoidance of any gap is achieved by subsections (1) and (2). These subsections continue in force the Rent Arrears Pre-Action Requirements (Coronavirus) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 and deem them to have been made under the powers inserted by sections 46 and 47 of this Act. Subsection (3) deals with any references in the pre-action requirements which need to be updated in order for that document to be read as being the pre-action protocol which is provided for under this Act. Subsection (4) then essentially ensures that this section applies only to post-commencement eviction notices and connected eviction proceedings. To the extent that the regulations are continued in force by section 48, they should be read without any of these changes (because the existing law is continued in force without any changes for the cases covered by section 48, and therefore no changes to the regulations are required in that context).
187.The pre-action protocol under this Act will therefore (at least initially) contain the same provisions as the current pre-action requirements specified under the Coronavirus (Scotland) (No.2) Act 2020. The regulations will be able to be revoked at a later date, and new regulations made under the powers created by this Act.