Housing (Scotland) Act 2001

78 Power to obtain information: further provision

(1) In section 77, “agent” includes banker, solicitor and auditor.

(2) Nothing in that section authorises the Scottish Ministers to require—

(a) the disclosure of anything which a person would be entitled to refuse to disclose on grounds of confidentiality in proceedings in the Court of Session, or

(b) the disclosure by a banker of anything in breach of any duty of confidentiality owed by the banker to a person other than a local authority or, as the case may be, a registered social landlord or a subsidiary or associate of a registered social landlord.

(3) References in that section to a document are to anything in which information of any description is recorded; and in relation to a document in which information is recorded otherwise than in legible form, references to producing it are to producing it in legible form.

(4) Where by virtue of that section documents are produced to any person, that person may take copies of or make extracts from them.

(5) A person who fails, without reasonable excuse, to do anything required of that person by a notice under that section is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

(6) A person who intentionally alters, suppresses or destroys a document which that person has been required by a notice under that section to produce is guilty of an offence and is liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum,

(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine.