Solicitors Specialising in Property Litigation
They say an Englishman’s home is his castle, and we certainly all want to feel safe, secure and happy in our own homes. After all, it’s often the largest investment we’ll ever make, both financially and emotionally. A dispute over property can leave you feeling upset, insecure and could potentially damage the value of your home, so disagreements of this nature can be very distressing.
Anything that intrudes on your right to a peaceful private life can be upsetting, and knowing that the root of your problem lives only next door, across the road or round the corner can be particularly worrying, particularly if it leaves you feeling unsafe or vulnerable.
That’s why it’s really important to ensure that you’ve got a team of qualified specialist property dispute solicitors on your side who can help resolve your dispute. Our expertise is recognised by the fact that since 2019 we have been 1 of only 3 Progressive Approved solicitors –specialist property law firms approved by Progressive Property – Britain’s biggest property training network. What’s more, we are the only solicitors recommended for property disputes by the HomeOwners Alliance – one of the UK’s leading property advice websites.
Looking for legal advice on a Property Dispute? Call our Dispute Resolution team on FREEPHONE 0800 1404544 or one of our four local office numbers for FREE initial phone advice – no strings attached.
What are the most common property disputes?
There are many different types of residential property disputes which can arise, but among the most common are the following;
- Boundary disputes
These are particularly common, with party walls, fences and hedges often causing disagreements between neighbours. Confusion over ownership, upkeep or rights to use the boundary can cause great amounts of upset.
Click here to read more about boundary disputes or party wall disputes
- Rights of way
These can often be are a delicate area, with disputes often being caused by one neighbour having a right of access to his or her property, accessing it via another person’s land. This does not affect ownership, but can sour relations deeply.
Click here to read more about Rights of Way Disputes
- Noisy neighbours
Noise from a neighbour, their children or their animals can seriously impact on your right to a peaceful family life and cause great distress.
Click here to read more about neighbour disputes
- Building disputes
It’s not just neighbours who can cause issues for homeowners and residents, though. Disputes with builders or construction firms are issues that our property dispute team regularly come across. These include issues with builders, contractors and subcontractors.
Again, depending on your particular circumstances, if your builder leaves you with a poor standard of work this, you may well have a strong legal case against them.
Click here to read more about building disputes or how our specialist New Build Problems Solicitors could help you
- Joint property ownership disputes
An estimated 6.6 million adults in a relationship now live together without being married. To give you an idea of the scale, that is approximately one in every five families. In addition a significant number of especially young people buy property jointly with a friend to get a foot on the housing ladder.
And an increasing number of those people end up in a dispute over ownership.
Click here to read more about joint property ownership disputes
- Problems when buying property or land
Even when buying a property, difficulties can arise, including the following;
• Failure of the previous owner to disclose full information about the property to you during the sale process – including not mentioning a right of way over your land, a serious dispute with a neighbour or the fact that there’s outstanding planning permission for a block of flats to be built in your back garden, you may well have a claim against the vendor.
• Failure of your architect, surveyor, or solicitor to advise you properly. This may give you grounds to make a professional negligence claim against them. And funding the legal costs of your claim is no problem with a no win no fee arrangement.
Click here to read more about professional negligence claims
- Landlord and tenant disputes
Our litigation team regularly deal with a full range of landlord and tenant disputes – and our specialist five strong leasehold team deal regularly with ground rent and service charge disputes as well as both breach of lease by freeholder and leaseholder.
Click here to read more about how our service charge dispute solicitors can help you
- Adverse possession Claims
If you have used land for many years, without the legal owner’s consent, you may be entitled to claim ownership of it under the principle of adverse possession, and initially claim what is known as “possessory title” to that land. Click here to read more about defending or claiming adverse possession of land or property and other land title disputes.
- Freeholder Leaseholder Disputes
These include service charge and ground rent disputes, lease forfeiture applications along with issues arising out of lease extensions and lease enfranchisement. These are often handled by the First-Tier Property Tribunal
Click here to read more about Freeholder Leaseholder Disputes
- Japanese Knotweed Compensation Claims
One of the solicitors in our litigation team recently won a successful professional negligence compensation claim worth £250K against a negligent surveyor who failed to identify rampant Japanese Knotweed in the garden.
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Click here to read more about Japanese Knotweed Compensation
- Challenging, Removing or Enforcing Restrictive Covenants
The need for a specialist solicitor
All of these different types of dispute need to be handled differently, and they often involve the need for your solicitor to how the specialist knowledge of property issues including, for example, JCT Minor Works or Design and Build construction contracts.
A dispute with a neighbour it is likely to need handling in a different way to a dispute with your builder, which is this very different from a dispute with a vendor or a professional negligence claim against a surveyor.
Resolving your property dispute
Trying to resolve a property dispute can be extremely expensive and time consuming. If you have to take the case to court, the costs could run into the tens of thousands and take years to resolve.
That’s just one of the reasons why here at Bonallack & Bishop, our property dispute team will do their best to conclude your case as soon as possible, with minimum legal costs.
That can sometimes be achieved with just a simple solicitor’s letter or after a brief exchange between the parties of solicitor’s correspondence and information. If that fails, then our team will strongly encourage the use of mediation – with the intention of avoiding going to court for a fully contested trial and thereby reducing the costs and stress to everyone involved. A fully contested court hearing has to be the final resort.
What’s more, if the case does have to go to final hearing, then judge may look more favourably upon you for having tried to resolve the issue through other means before coming to court. In short, if you are seen to have been fair and reasonable throughout, you will stand a better chance of having a positive outcome should the case go to court.
Looking for a Specialist Property Dispute Solicitor? Call Us Now
If you’re having a dispute or problem regarding your property or land, we can help you get your life back on track. Call us today to see what our experienced team could do for you.
We offer FREE initial phone advice so you can find out where you stand
Contact us by
- Calling FREEPHONE 0800 1404544 or on 01722 422300
- E-mailing us using the online enquiry form below:
