Family

Buying and selling

The seller provides the survey in the Home Report. Offers are submitted by solicitors. The contract, the missives, becomes binding weeks earlier than exchange of contracts in England, so gazumping is rare. The tax is Land and Buildings Transaction Tax with its own bands, and titles are registered in the Land Register of Scotland.

Injury

There is no whiplash tariff and no small claims portal, so lower value claims remain solicitor-handled. Success fees are capped by regulation. Qualified one-way costs shifting ordinarily protects a pursuer who loses, subject to statutory and court-rule exceptions. Pleural plaques remain compensable in Scotland, having been made so by statute after the House of Lords held otherwise. The time limit is three years, and for children it runs from the sixteenth birthday rather than the eighteenth.

Medical negligence

The standard of care is set by Hunter v Hanley 1955 SC 200, decided two years before Bolam and expressed differently. The leading consent case, Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board [2015] UKSC 11, was itself a Scottish appeal. Claims against health boards are met through a national scheme rather than by individual trusts.

After a death

Scotland grants confirmation, not probate. A spouse and children have legal rights in the moveable estate which cannot be defeated by a will, so complete disinheritance of a child is not possible here. Intestacy is governed by prior rights and legal rights, and a surviving cohabitant must apply to the court within six months or receive nothing.

Work

Employment law is largely reserved, so the substantive rules are shared, but tribunals sitting in Scotland are administered separately and apply Scottish procedure. Where a contractual question arises it is decided under Scots law.

Criminal

Prosecution is by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. Juries have fifteen members. Since 1st January 2026 there are two verdicts rather than three, the not proven verdict having been abolished, and conviction requires at least ten of the fifteen jurors. Corroboration remains a feature of Scots criminal evidence in a way it is not south of the border.

The courts

Sheriff courts handle the great bulk of civil and criminal business. The Court of Session is the supreme civil court and the High Court of Justiciary the supreme criminal court, from which there is no appeal to the United Kingdom Supreme Court in criminal matters other than on limited grounds. Terminology differs throughout: pursuer and defender rather than claimant and defendant, decree rather than judgment, interdict rather than injunction, and expenses rather than costs.