Commercial property transactions frequently involve more than one site. A shopping centre, a rural estate, or a social housing refinance transaction can span multiple areas of land within a single matter, each of which may need its own Property Enquiry Certificate.
The Multi-Unit PEC is PSS Commercial’s attempt to streamline this challenge. PEC results for adjacent areas of land are aggregated and disclosed in a single Multi-Unit PEC report – adding efficiency to the search ordering and review process and providing a cost-effective and convenient product at a significant discount to the total for standalone reports.
Ordinarily, a matter covering multiple areas of land means multiple PEC reports, each arriving as a standalone document. The Multi-Unit PEC consolidates the search data for all adjacent areas of land into a single, consistently formatted report, so relevant information can be reviewed more efficiently without duplication rather than pieced together from multiple reports.
Alongside our Multi-Unit PEC product sits the Multi-Unit PEC Update. Commercial transactions often move on a different timeline than expected, and a delay typically means PEC reports need to be re-ordered prior to completion. Rather than reordering fresh PECs from scratch, the Multi-Unit PEC Update product provides a quick and cost-effective way for a firm to obtain the latest position for the areas of land within their matter.
The Multi-Unit PEC was shaped through direct conversation with commercial property lawyers about how they actually structure this kind of work, rather than adapted from a single-property report after the fact. That distinction matters: a report designed from the outset to handle multiple areas can present the data in a genuinely aggregated way, rather than simply attaching several certificates together.
Take a rural estate sale covering a dozen adjacent units, all within the same council area but listed separately for planning purposes – the kind of matter agricultural and estate specialists handle regularly. Under the Multi-Unit PEC, that becomes one report to review rather than twelve, at a lower price than the combined cost of ordering each certificate individually.
The same logic applies just as well to a commercial property portfolio or a run of retail units under one landlord. Wherever a matter involves more than one area of land, the Multi-Unit PEC treats that as the normal shape of the work, not an exception to be managed around.
The Multi-Unit PEC sits within PSS Commercial’s broader single-matter structure, where every property, search and update tied to a matter can be managed and reported on together, with one invoice covering the whole matter rather than one per property. On its own, the Multi-Unit PEC does a specific job well. Alongside the rest of the platform, it becomes part of a more coherent way of handling multi-site work from instruction through to completion.
PSS Commercial, Scotland’s first search ordering platform built specifically for commercial property work, including the Multi-Unit PEC, is currently being tested by a group of commercial property firms ahead of the platform’s launch in September 2026.
To find out more about PSS Commercial or the beta programme, contact us at admin@propertysearchesscotland.co.uk or call 0141 221 8884.
