Registers of Scotland (RoS) processes more than 600,000 applications each year. The vast majority within 35 days. This is not the same for all of our work and we have a strategy in place to tackle the number of open cases. This guide will help you understand what having an open case means for you as a legal professional and your client. It will also direct you towards the support you can access.
Reassurance
RoS is committed to delivering an effective and efficient service for customers. Having an open case with RoS carries little to no risk as legal protections are backdated to the day on which the Keeper receives the application. It also doesn’t impact an owner’s ability to sell, re-mortgage or make changes to their land or property.
Turnaround times
Our aim is to stabilise then reduce the volume of open cases. The number of open cases can be impacted by a range of factors such as the buoyancy of the property market. Our digital systems, increased automation and new ways of working are supporting our efforts to improve turnaround times.
We aim to dispatch the majority of new applications within a reliable and consistent timeframe.
We will continue to complete registration of older open cases as quickly as possible.
See our Corporate Plan for more detail on how we plan to tackle turnaround times.
Support for you and your clients
Status of my case
You can find out the status of any of your cases by contacting: customerservices@ros.gov.uk
For more detailed requests contact our Customer Relationship Team: CRteam@ros.gov.uk
No rejections after three months
If an application has been with RoS for longer than three months, we will not reject it unless it is legally unavoidable. In the rare circumstance where an application does have to be rejected, we have an effective process to ensure it can be fast-tracked through the system when it is re-submitted.
Expedite
If having an open case causes issues for your client, we can expedite it. It must meet at least one of our three criteria, and have the potential to result in:
- financial loss or hardship
- the loss of future transactions
- personal loss or hardship
The expedite service is for those in genuine need and evidence of the loss or hardship must be provided. We reserve the right to refuse requests where the criteria is not met.
Progress
You can stay up to date with RoS’ progress on its open casework.