Publication - Advice and guidance
Short term lets - licensing scheme part 1: guidance for hosts and operators
Guidance for hosts and operators of short-term lets in Scotland. See supplementary guidance for licensing authorities for more information. An update will follow The Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Short-term Lets) Amendment Order 2024 coming into effect.
7. Glossary of terms
7.1. In this guidance, the following terms are used. Please note that this is not a complete list of terms used and defined in the Licensing Order[33]:
| "the 1982 Act" | means the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982; |
|---|---|
| "the Control Area Regulations" | mean the Town and Country Planning (Short-term Let Control Areas) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 (SSI 2021/154); |
| "accommodation" | means any building or structure, or any part of the building or structure, and includes rooms in a home, a whole home or something more unusual like a yurt or a treehouse; |
| "control area" | means a short-term let control area designated following the process set out in the Control Area Regulations; |
| "dwellinghouse" | means, for these purposes, an independent dwelling (with its own front door, kitchen and bathroom) such as a house, flat, cottage etc.; |
| "existing host" | means a host or operator who has used their premises to provide short-term lets before 1 October 2022 and who will apply for a licence to continue the same use; |
| "guest" | means a person occupying property for the purposes of a short-term let; |
| "home letting" | means using all or part of your own home for short-term lets whilst you are absent; |
| "home sharing" | means using all or part of your own home for short-term lets whilst you are there; |
| "host" or "operator" or "you" | means a person or company providing property for short-term letting, including commercial landlords (note that the host may not be the owner or person who lives at the property); |
| "letting agency" | means an organisation which facilitates the agreement between the host or operator and the guest for use of the property as a short-term let and which may additionally provide other services (marketing, bookings, queries, cleaning etc.); |
| "licensing authority" "mandatory conditions" | means an authority responsible for running the licensing scheme, usually a council; means conditions which licensing authorities must apply across Scotland; |
| "neighbour" | means, for our purposes, someone whose permanent residence is in close enough proximity to a short-term let to have a legitimate interest in its business, e.g. potentially affected by safety, noise, litter, nuisance; |
| "[your] own home" | means [your] principal place of residence, the place where you normally live; |
| "platform" | means an online letting agency; |
| "premises" | means the property and land on one site, normally premises have their own postal address; |
| "secondary letting" | means a short-term let involving the letting of property where you do not normally live, for example a second home; |
| "short-term let of a property" | means the entering of an agreement between a guest and a host for the use of a property as residential accommodation by a guest in circumstances set out in Annex A[34]; |
Contact
Email: shorttermlets@gov.scot
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