Current status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 3 April 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on introducing regulations that would require people purchasing a property to comply with a prohibition on polluting heating in a specified amount of time following the completion of the sale.
As I have set out in my statement to Parliament earlier today, we intend to introduce a Heat in Buildings Bill in Year 5 of this Parliamentary session.
We intend this Bill to introduce a statutory target to decarbonise our buildings by 2045, as far as possible.
We recognise that this will involve a mix of heating types, and that different solutions will be needed in different homes and non-domestic buildings.
We do not now intend to immediately take forward proposals that would have placed an obligation on those purchasing a property to transition that building to a clean heating system within a specified period of time following the completion of the sale.
This decision has been taken following analysis of the more than 1600 responses we received to our public consultation on proposals for a Heat in Buildings Bill, extensive engagement with stakeholders, and consideration of research commissioned by the Scottish Government into the impacts of these proposals on the Scottish housing market.