How to solve a boundary dispute
An Englishman’s home is his castle, or so they say. Arguments over the position of boundary lines or an encroachment (coming into your land) over a perceived boundary line can become one of the most common forms of a property dispute. They can cause huge stress and tension because you are arguing over the most expensive thing you own – your land and the property on it.
However the problems with the boundary are discovered and encountered, whether the replacing of wall, fence or hedge, this new placement of the property line can prompt claims of there being a mistake in the correct boundary line whether this is intentional, or otherwise.
What starts out as a mere disagreement and some crossed words can quickly escalate – causing parties to proceed to an expensive legal row over what could simply be a small strip of land just a few inches wide. Our solicitors can help you to consider alternative options at resolving the matter before it proceeds legally and ends up needing court assistance to be resolved.
Where is the true boundary?
People tend to assume that HM Land Registry can solve problems related to the boundary by checking the plans that they hold for properties. Sadly this is not always the case.
HM Land Registry filed plans only show ‘general boundaries’ and not the true boundary for a property. We can help you seek copies of the following documents from the Land Registry:
- title register entries – the title number, who owns it, what they paid, whether there is a mortgage (legal charge) on the property and whether there are any rights of way across the land; &
- title plan – the location of the property and general boundaries
Some people often think that the Land Registry may be able to assist in resolving boundary disputes. This is not the case. The Land Registry do not aim to offer assistance in such matters and will leave it up to you to resolve with your neighbour.
How can we help?
We aim to pursue alternative options to try to resolve boundary disputes such as mediation, negotiations or simple round table meetings to try to avoid legal proceedings if at all possible. The reason for this is that boundary dispute legal actions can become very expensive for a sliver of land. If this can be avoided then it is often for the best. It is also an idea to check your home insurance policy for legal expenses insurance funding that they may be able to offer to the resolution of such matters.
If you do need assistance then please email asit@pattersonscommerciallaw.com, or if you prefer, you can telephone us on 0116 319 1110 and ask to speak with Asit Jansari.
Pattersons Commercial Law offers a debt collection service for all commercial debt recovery services whether in Leicester or throughout the UK. We offer specialisms in debt recovery and insolvency actions for commercial clients who range from Small or Medium sized Enterprises to large corporations.
Your business finances can be seriously affected when customers and clients refuse to pay. When attempts at recovering payment have been exhausted, we can provide a business debt recovery service that is simple, fast and effective.
Collect outstanding debts
When resolution through negotiation has been tried but was not successful, we can pursue claims for our clients through the courts with regular advice and assistance through the process to ensure you are not dealing with the matter alone.
When attempts at dispute resolution have been exhausted, we use the litigation process to maximise your prospects of successfully recovering sums due and owing to you whilst also preserving any existing customer relations.
If you do need any help collecting a debt you should get in touch without delay, for your own peace of mind call 0116 319 1110.
Debt collection advice
We can advise on a case by case basis in relation to relatively simple refusals to pay for goods or services, to more complex breach of contract disputes.
Information about the service that we offer and how this would benefit your business is readily available at no obligation to proceed further. Please email asit@pattersonscommerciallaw.com, or If you prefer, you can telephone us on 0116 319 1110 and ask to speak with Asit Jansari.
At Pattersons Commercial Law, we understand that cash flow is the lifeblood of any business and that simply turning a blind eye to it can cause more stress and pain when the business or person that owes you money simply runs out and are unable to settle the sums due.
Our debt recovery service is available to Individuals, Partnerships or Limited Companies to be able to efficiently recover sums owed to them. The service has been designed to cater for clients’ individual needs for the particular situation they are in. We will arrange for a dedicated solicitor to review the situation, consider the steps needed to be taken based on the information that you hold and then for the planned works to be undertaken.
The process has been designed to offer a cost-effective method of pursuing money owed to you with the right amount of expertise, experience and logic.
Contact us to talk through your case to see how we can assist.
Pre-Action
We will apply an initial set up fee if we have not previously acted for you. This is a standard charge to open the file of papers and to undertake identity checking requirements placed upon us.
Where we are able to do so, we will seek to clarify precisely what the costs will be ahead of undertaking the work for you. This will give you a clear understanding of the costs and steps involved and the timeframes to deal with the matter.
The fees and charges incurred (known as ‘disbursements’) referred to here are our fees for undefended debts in accordance with our fee scales below. The details specified are based on the current court fees (last updated in August 2020). We have also sought to set out details of other fees that may be incurred (and which may vary on a case by case basis). Some fees like agents’ fee for attending a hearing may be subject to change outside our control.
Court fees and certain Land Registry fees are not currently subject to VAT. Where disbursements are subject to VAT, we have sought to set this out. Where fees and disbursements are subject to VAT, this will be so at the current 20% rate.
STAGE 1 – LETTERS BEFORE ACTION AND LATE PAYMENT DEMANDS
Our fee to consider your paperwork and send a Pre-Action Letter will depend on the volume of documentation and the time taken to consider this and thereafter draft the letter before action – including any correspondence or phone calls with you to ensure a full understanding of all issues.
In a straightforward case, where your paperwork is in good order, our fees for preparing the Letter Before Action or demand are likely to be in the region of £150 – £200 + VAT.
Within this stage we would outline that the steps that we will be taking are:
- Considering the instructions and reviewing the documentation. You may find it useful to complete our Instruction Form which you can request here.
- Considering the legal status of the debtor and undertaking general checks on them
- Calculating contractual interest payable to you based on your terms and conditions of business
- If there are no terms of business, then we will calculate interest based on the applicable statutory law
- If you seek to claim back Late Payment Compensation* and recovery charges for business-to-business debts, we will ensure that these charges cover our fees.
- Drafting the formal Letter Before Action to the debtor and giving them the relevant period of time to reply (14 or 30 days depending on the debtor’s legal status)
- Collecting the payment from the debtor
- Advice and assistance about the matter throughout
*under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 and the Late Payment of Commercial Debts Regulations, you are entitled to charge interest and receive compensation sums from the debtor for business to business debts.
STAGE 1 DEBT COLLECTION CHARGES
Debt owed
£10,000.01 +
£250 + VAT (additional £100 +VAT for each extra defendant)
5% recovery fee plus VAT on a “no recovery, no fee” basis
10% recovery fee plus VAT on a “no recovery, no fee” basis
£150 + VAT (additional £50 +VAT for each extra defendant)
£1,000.01 – £10,000
Our fees
Pay as you go
£0 – £1,000
£125 + VAT (additional £35 +VAT for each extra defendant)
20% recovery fee plus VAT on a “no recovery, no fee” basis
No recovery, No fee
STAGE 2 – COURT PROCEEDINGS
Due to the manner in which we keep our fees low for Stage 1, we would clarify that the service does not permit us to be able to conduct a full review of your matter and determine our views in relation to contractual liability or the legal position of the parties. Nor does it permit us to review or consider disputes between you and the debtor or any disputed matters subsequently raised by the debtor.
Where it is necessary to move to commence Court proceedings, you are entitled to claim the Court fee that you have to pay to issue a claim and also certain “fixed costs”, which are identified within Part 45 of the Civil Procedure Rules, from the debtor. The Court fee and “fixed costs” will form part of the total sum that you would be looking to recover from the debtor in the event that your claim is successful, and the debtor has the ability to pay the sums due under the County Court Judgment.
We will require payment of the court issue fee for your claim at the time that the claim is issued.
Our fees and disbursements on issuing a claim form are set out in the table below, together with details of the “fixed costs on issue” that are confirmed to be recoverable from the debtor. We would also set out that our fees set out below are payable by you irrespective of the sums that are recovered from the debtor as part of the sum due under the judgment.
If you have not done so already, we would require you to complete our Information Form to allow for the process to be conducted efficiently.
Amount Claimed
£5,000.00 – £9,999.99
£350.00
£455.00
£100.00
£10,000 – £199,999.99
£500.00
5% of the value of the claim
£100.00
£3,000.00 – £4,999.99
£300.00
£205.00
£80.00
£25.00 – £299.99
£1,000.00 – £1,499.99
£1,500.00 – £2,999.99
£250.00
£115.00
£80.00
£250.00
£80.00
£80.00
£500.00 – £999.99
£250.00
£70.00
£70.00
£50.00
Our fees (excl VAT)
Court Issue fee
Recoverable Fixed Costs
£250.00
£300.00 – £499.99
£250.00
£50.00
£35.00
£50.00
Amount Claimed
£150,000.00
£7,500.00
£100,000.00
£5,000.00
£10,000 – £199,999.99
5% of the claim value
£75,000.00
£3,750.00
£1,250.00
Court
fee
Example claim
value
Example Court fee payable
Fixed
costs
on
claim
£25,000.00
£15,000.00
£750.00
£100.00
£100.00
£100.00
£100.00
£100.00
£200,000 +
Amount Claimed
£750.00
Our fees (excl VAT)
Court Issue fee
Recoverable Fixed Costs
£10,000.00
£100.00
STAGE 3 – ENTERING JUDGEMENT
There is no Court fee payable to enter a Default Judgment in the absence of a Defence being lodged by the debtor.
Our fees for entering judgment in default are £35.00 plus VAT.
On entering judgment in the absence of a Defence having been lodged by the opponent, you can claim the “fixed costs on entry of judgment” set out in Part 45 of the Civil Procedure Rules. The sums stated will also form part of the sum that will be claimed against the debtor under the judgment from the Court.
The amount of recoverable “fixed cost on entry of judgment” which you can claim will depend on the amount of the claim and stage at which judgment is entered as set out in the table below.
In default of an Acknowledgement of service
£25.00 – £5,000.00
£5,000.00 +
In default of a Defence
£25.00 – £5,000.00
£25.00
£5,000.00 +
£35.00
By an admission of liability proposals accepted
£25.00 – £5,000.00
£40.00
£5,000.00 +
£55.00
By an admission of liability proposals rejected
£25.00 – £5,000.00
£5,000.00 +
£70.00
£55.00
£22.00
£30.00
STAGE 4 – ENFORCEMENT DEFAULT JUDGEMENT
Where Judgement has been entered as in Stage 3 above, and a County Court Judgement has been obtained, but payment is still not received from the debtor, there are a number of methods of enforcement available to be taken against the debtor. Only the fixed costs and court issue fees are recoverable at this stage from the Defendant upon a successful outcome.
We would also state that at this stage there are a number of options available to you depending on the level of the debt and all information known about the Defendant. We will discuss the best option with you and advise on the appropriate steps based on the information that you know.
Our fees are based on the following:
Oral Examination (Order to obtain information from a debtor)
Enforcement action
£275.00 + VAT
£250.00 + VAT
Application for Third Party Debt Order
£450.00 + VAT
Warrant of Control (County Court Bailiffs)
£110.00
Application for a Charging Order
£450.00 + VAT
£110.00
£60.00 Land Registry fees
Attachment of Earnings Order
£250.00 + VAT
£110.00
Our fees
Court fee
Additional requirements
£55.00
Process servers fee (approximately £100 – £125 + VAT)
£83.00
High Court Enforcement action
Where the County Court Judgement exceeded £600.00 in value, it is possible to instruct High Court Enforcement Officers (HCEO) to attempt to recover the debt owed on your behalf.
Instructing High Court Enforcement Officers
Description
£150 + VAT
Our fees
Court fee
£66.00
If debt is recovered successfully from the debtor then no further fee payable.
If debt is not recovered successfully then a compliance fee of £75 plus VAT is paid on instructing the HCEO
At some point, we have all needed to return things purchased that didn’t work properly. The mad panic to hunt for the receipt and then take it back to the shop to do battle. Or, you have purchased it online and you decide to phone customer services and pick your way through an automated phone system – only to be told that there is nothing that can be done as it is ‘outside the warranty’.
If this sounds familiar, talk to us on 0116 319 1110 and ask to speak with Asit Jansari. We have an expertise in consumer law and litigation – and we are here to help.
We can explain your legal position, and help you to find a solution.
How we can help you
The Pattersons Commercial Law litigation team are highly experienced in taking up consumer cases with a variety of businesses. Whatever your situation, we have the appropriate legal expertise to help put it right. Whether it is problems with fitted kitchens/bedrooms to new and used cars developing faults and problems, if you did not get what you paid for, we can help to sort it out.
At Pattersons Commercial Law, we believe that you should be entitled to receive the goods/services that you believed you were purchasing. As such, we will talk these through with you and understand the problems encountered and aim to offer you straightforward advice about your legal rights and how to move forward.
We will look to take up your case with the people or company that sold you the faulty goods or provided a poor service. Often, receiving a solicitor letter on their doormat does the trick because companies know that you mean business when a well-crafted solicitor’s letter is received. In the unlikely event that this does not do the trick then we can take appropriate legal action for you to get the outcome that you deserve.
Our expertise
Our consumer law team have handled a variety of claim types over the years and will be able to offer expertise and knowledge to any legal query. We have advised clients on disputes involving:
- Car dealerships in respect of the purchase of new & used cars by consumers and businesses;
- The refurbishment of a narrowboat by a specialist company;
- Disputes with builders;
- Kitchen/bedroom supply and installation concerns;
- Problems with Window & Conservatory manufacturers and installers;
- Plumbers and electricians.
We can advise on a case by case basis in relation to these matters in order to determine the likely costs of proceeding and steps necessary to work towards a resolution.
For more information about the service that we offer and how we can help, please email asit@pattersonscommerciallaw.com, or If you prefer, you can telephone us on 0116 319 1110 and ask to speak with Asit Jansari.
We enter contracts every day, from complicated business exchanges to jumping into a taxi and asking to be taken somewhere. Even with the best of intentions, it is common for problems and disputes between parties to a contract to arise.
The types of disagreements that can arise will vary greatly but they may involve matters such as failure to pay for goods supplied or services completed, the quality of the services or goods delivered, the performance (or not) of parties, or other terms of the agreement that turn out to be frustrated or unworkable, such as during the forced lockdowns and Covid-19 Pandemic.
Apart from the unprecedented global Pandemic, these types of disputes are almost an inevitable reality of contracts between individuals or between businesses. Disputes relating to contracts can be expensive whether you are an individual or a business and can cause harm to relationships and goodwill. When looking at options to resolve these types of matters, we will look at alternative forms of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) such as Mediation or simply having an informal meeting to narrow the issues and seek resolution.
Our focus will be to understand your business, or your individual circumstances, and the details of the dispute in hand. Our priority is to reduce or manage the risks, limit the costs and disruption that may be caused to your business or to you personally, while working on identifying the most appropriate form of resolution of the dispute.
If a settlement cannot be reached without needing to involve the court, we will advise you on the next steps of commencing or defending Court proceedings, while supporting and guiding you through the litigation process.
Information about the service that we offer and how we could assist is readily available. Please email asit@pattersonscommerciallaw.com, or If you prefer, you can telephone us on 0116 319 1110 and ask to speak with Asit Jansari.
When you are considering the hiring of a professional, you expect them to be knowledgeable and experts in the field that you require assistance. The last thing you are expecting is for them to be negligent and to make a small mistake, or a large mistake, which ends up costing you money.
Unfortunately, some professionals do make mistakes, miss deadlines and sometimes even misadvise their clients. Our solicitors have professional negligence specialisms and can assist in resolving these mistakes through negotiation, mediation or the threat of Court proceedings where this is necessary.
Types of professional negligence situations
- Receiving poor legal advice from a solicitor. This can also apply where the advice received may not have been incorrect but was not appropriate for your situation;
- Your will has been drafted incorrectly;
- You’ve been given incorrect financial advice;
- A professional offers advice to you on matters that may be beyond their particular area of expertise;
- An engineer or architect provided you with erroneous designs, or load bearing calculations or failed to spot a design flaw;
- A solicitor missed a crucial deadline (limitation) for your case;
- A solicitor did not follow your instructions during the course of the case, or sought to take steps that you did not instruct;
- A surveyor fails to see a defect when undertaking a pre-purchase or separately commissioned survey.
Whilst the above are merely a few examples of things that sometimes go wrong, the wrongdoing may have been caused by any lack of care or attention on the professional’s part. Whilst this has been termed professional negligence, it could also have been related to their incompetence.
The position that you may have been left with following such negligent or incompetent advice could be crippling and may leave you feeling without trust for professionals. We are here to guide you through the process of taking back control and establishing your legal rights and clarifying them clearly to identify the wrongdoing and the remedies available as a result of the advice or assistance you were given which fell short of the standard of service that you trusted them to provide.
Determining whether you have a viable claim
The manner in which we aim to consider whether a viable claim exists is to consider the following aspects in relation to the problems that you have encountered:
- Whether an experienced professional working in the same industry sector would have given you similar advice or whether it would have been different; or
Once these aspects have been considered, and a duty of care is established as being owed to you by the professional, we will consider an aspect known as causation, this means whether or not the poor standard of service you received from the professional was directly or indirectly responsible for any losses you may have suffered.
Our solicitors will establish a measure of the direct losses you have suffered because of the breach of duty, and ask the courts to restore you to the position you were in before you sought professional advice.
How can we help?
We aim to consider your situation with empathy and care to determine whether a claim can be made and to give you an idea of the likely outcomes.
If you do need assistance then please email asit@pattersonscommerciallaw.com, or if you prefer, you can telephone us on 0116 319 1110 and ask to speak with Asit Jansari.
Landlord and tenant matters often require a great deal of precision, expertise and intricate knowledge of the relevant law, timing of notices to be served and also the correct completion of notices for them to be valid, or validly served. We are well equipped to deal with such matters.
We have considerable experience in dealing with troublesome tenants, whether that involves securing possession of property or recovering rent arrears. We pride ourselves on offering practical advice to landlords at the outset, setting out the options available to them in straightforward terms and giving advice on the basis of our extensive experiences. Acting for a number of Lettings Agents locally and nationally, we also offer advice and assistance regarding compliance with the changing laws and requirements to simply being there to talk through problems or concerns that they find where they may need assistance in the future.
Support through to eviction
Our aim is to deal with matters right from the beginning to the very end - from considering which notice or notices to serve on a tenant, attending any court hearings that may be necessary and ultimately enforcing judgments for possession and rent arrears.
Landlord possession service
We offer specialist and timely advice to landlords faced with the worry and financial risks of trying to seek possession of their property from tenants. This is a specialised area of law where experience and knowledge of the Court process can make a real difference to the success of your possession claim.
We also assist with possessions against unlawful occupiers or squatters who have entered on to your land or taken occupation in your property without a lease or a license to permit them to do so. We can arrange service of the appropriate notices and commence emergency court action to seek a hearing date for the possession order to be granted swiftly.
Advice for Tenants
Not only do we deal with claims for possession and rent arrears on a regular basis, but we can also give advice, to both landlords and tenants, on their requirements for compliance with Tenancy Deposit Schemes, including breaches of the requirements and defending (for Landlords) or bringing (for tenants) legal proceedings in these matters.
Fixed fee work and assistance
Information about the services that we offer and how this would benefit you or your tenants is readily available at no obligation to proceed further. Please email asit@pattersonscommerciallaw.com, or If you prefer, you can telephone us on 0116 319 1110 and ask to speak with Asit Jansari.