Property Enquiry Certificates

A Property Enquiry Certificate is a document produced by the Council to collate various elements of information about the status of a property. These elements are derived from the recommendations of bodies such as the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the Law Society of Scotland.

The information contained in the PEC is required for property transactions. The seller’s solicitor will normally request it as part of the property search for conveyancing activities.

The PEC provides information regarding the Council’s range of activities and responsibilities, including whether the property is subject to any statutory orders or notices.

The information given on a PEC usually relates to:

Planning

Planning applications for the property since October 1990, whether it is a Listed Building, in a Conservation Area, affected by an Article 4 Direction, or subject to an enforcement notice.

Building Warrant

Recent decisions on applications for the property.

Roads Information

Whether the road access is adopted by the Council for maintenance purposes and if the property is affected by any transport proposals.

Statutory notices

Served under the Civic Government legislation or the Edinburgh District Council Order Confirmation Act for repairs to the property.

Statutory notices

Served under housing, environmental protection and health and safety legislation.

Contaminated Land

Information on whether land is in the Contaminated Land register.

Water and drainage

Information from Scottish Water, (optional).

The PEC is covered by an Indemnity Insurance policy.

Get PECs On-line

As part of the Council’s Smart City initiative, to harness new technology to improve the services we provide, PECs can now be ordered online.

All that a solicitor need do is log on to our Portal, register and order the PEC they require online.

Once registered, a user has an account on our website. The account is secure and can only be accessed by the user.

It is important, when searching for information about a flatted property, that the exact flat address is used eg 3f1 and not the number for the general building block. If this is not entered you may not receive a Property Enquiry Certificate which has a complete history of the exact property.

Electronic notifications are sent out to confirm when each request has been received and further electronic notifications when the e-PECs are ready to be downloaded.

Being able to demonstrate which PEC has been ordered for which client is also important. Each PEC request can be given its own unique reference, a client’s reference for instance. In addition, a full record is retained of a user's transaction history in their account.

Area Search

The new Area Search service provides a check of the neighbourhood surrounding a property to find out what planning applications have been approved or refused. It provides current and historic planning application information going back six years for an area up to 250 metres around a chosen property.

You can order an Area Search online by going to the portal and register yourself as a PEC user, then follow the simple steps to order and pay for your PEC Area Search online.

The search will highlight all planning applications in your chosen area. Each application highlighted in the Area Search contains a hyperlink which links to more detailed information about that application. 

An Area Search request only takes a matter of minutes and is automatically sent to a user’s online account page, My Submissions.

As with the PEC service each Area Search request can be given its own unique reference, a client’s reference for instance.In addition, a full record is retained of a user's transaction history in their account.

Area Search Guide (532 kB)