Dealing with rights of pre-emption on transfer of property in Scotland

Produced in partnership with Emma Gray of Blackadders , Stuart King of Blackadders and

Practice notes

Scottish Law

Dealing with rights of pre-emption on transfer of property in Scotland

Produced in partnership with Emma Gray of Blackadders , Stuart King of Blackadders and

Practice notes

Scottish Law

What is a pre-emption?

A pre-emption is a type of option to purchase—historically the most common and arguably the least complex (at least in the form in which it is created). See Practice Note: Options to purchase property—Scotland. A pre-emption is:

•
a right of first refusal on a property
•
triggered by a specific event (usually the sale of the burdened property), and
•
created in the form of a real burden

Prior to the abolition of the feudal system on 28 November 2004, it was possible to create feudal or non-feudal rights of pre-emption, a distinction that remains important. It is also important to distinguish rights of pre-emption from rights of reversion (including rights of redemption). See Practice Note: Real burdens in Scotland—creation and interpretation—Pre-emptions, redemptions and reversions.

Trigger events

A right of pre-emption in the title to a property becomes relevant on the sale of that property, which is the usual trigger event for the option to exercise

Emma Gray

Blackadders

Emma trained and spent the first 13 years of her career in with Burness Paull prior to joining Blackadders in 2013 to head up the Commercial Property team. Emma is highly experienced in all aspects of commercial property including acquisitions and disposals, developments and investment work and landlord and tenant work (with wide ranging experience in both the office and retail and leisure sectors).

Over the years Emma has particularly enjoyed acting for clients in the retail and leisure sector where she has considerable expertise. Being dual qualified under Scots and English law, Emma enjoys working on transactions with UK wide portfolios. This is particularly welcomed by clients in the retail sector with a national presence.

Emma offers extensive experience in property finance, acting for lenders in secured lending transactions. Clients value her “can do”, commercial approach. Emma also acts for a number of large scale housing developers and also for landowners of strategic development land with large scale housing and mixed use projects.

Areas of Practice: Commercial Property (landlord and tenant, property finance, property development, house builder, property investment, retail and leisure).

Stuart King

Blackadders

Jurisdiction(s):

United Kingdom

Key definition:

Pre-emption definition

What does Pre-emption mean?

Pre-emption is a legal doctrine according to which the exercise of EU competences precludes corresponding Member State competences in case of a conflict.

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