Personal Licence
When purchasing a licensed premises you need to decide who will have the overall control over the sale and supply of alcohol. This person is called the Designated Premises Supervisor (‘DPS’). At least one of you needs to hold a Personal Licence and once they have a personal licence they can then apply to be the DPS on completion of the purchase.
In order to obtain a personal licence you will need: the National Certificate of Personal Licence Holders Certificate. In order to obtain this you need to attend an accredited course and sit an exam. Please contact us for details of approved courses. a Criminal Convictions Certificate.
You can apply for this on line through www.disclosurescotland.co.uk. Please note that both of the above items can take time to acquire and so this should be one of your first steps once you have made an offer on a licensed premises. Two passport photographs, one of which must be endorsed on the reverse by a competent person (i.e. Solicitor/Doctor) that the photograph is a true likeness of you. A fee of £37.00 payable to the Local Licensing Authority.
Once you have all these documents together the application for a personal licence along with a disclosure of criminal convictions needs to be served on the Local Licensing Authority for the area in which you live and a copy of it must be served on the police licensing authority. The police have fourteen days in which to object to your application. If no objection is received then a personal licence will be granted to you.
Premises Licence
It is not necessary for a person to have a personal licence to hold a premises licence. You can, therefore, transfer the premises licence to anyone you deem necessary to hold the premises licence. Remember that it is an asset of the business, therefore, the most suitable person to hold the premises licence would be the person who holds the legal title.
On completion of your purchase you will need to apply to transfer the premises licence from the current premises licence holder to you (or your nominated representative). Depending on who is going to be the DPS you will also need to apply to vary the premises licence to nominate a new DPS. In order to do this you will need to have: Consent to transfer the premises licence
Application to transfer the premises licence Application to vary the premises licence to nominate a new DPS Consent of the new DPS ORIGINAL premises licence (or an explanation why there is no premises licence) Fee of £46.00 The application is then served on the Licensing Authority where the premises is situated and copied to the Local Police Licensing Authority for where the premises is situated. If you are applying for a change in the DPS then the application also needs to be served on the outgoing DPS.
