In Scotland estate agency firms can be either law firms or non-law firm estate agents. So what is the difference between a solicitor/estate agent and a regular estate agent? And what difference does this make to you if you are a property buyer or property seller in Scotland? Quite a lot as it happens...!

Since 1 December 2008, any seller who is marketing a property for sale in Scotland must obtain a Home Report. There are limited exceptions, for example newly-built properties and genuinely off-market sales where the property is not advertised. However, in the vast majority of cases the seller must obtain the Home Report prior to the property is marketed. So what is the Home Report and what is it comprised of?

Quite simply, this is the amount of money that the seller is asking any potential buyer to pay for their property. However, to complicate things, buyers put prefixes in front of the asking price. For example: "Offers Over", "Fixed Price", "Offers Around", or "Offers in the Region Of" and even "Offers Under".

In many cities in Scotland, marauding non-solicitor estate agency chains entered the Scottish estate agency market in the early 1970s and mounted a very serious challenge to the traditional dominance that solicitors had in the marketing and sale of property in Scotland.  For those of a younger generation, particularly in areas dominated by these national or international estate agency brands and chains, it's perhaps inconceivable that it was ever any other way.  However, in response to this, solicitors clubbed together and did one of the most commercial-thinking and customer-friendly things that the legal profession has ever done: they created 'Solicitors' Property Centres' (SPCs). In Edinburgh, for example, there is an Edinburgh Solicitors' Property Centre (ESPC) and in Aberdeen there is an Aberdeen Solicitors' Property Centre (ASPC). These two are probably the largest and most dominant SPCs and others exist in other areas throughout Scotland.