A number of professions offer professional advice in connection with boundary disputes.
This page helps you identify the right professional for your particular needs, and shows you where to find them.

FOR BOUNDARY DISPUTES

Chartered Land Surveyors are the experts in mapping, measurement and problem-solving in three dimensions. They are best placed to interpret any mapping evidence for your property boundary and to understand the limitations of such mapping. They will also produce the most accurate plans of your property boundary.       Contact:

Jon Maynard FRICS
Chartered Land Surveyor

e-mail me

or tel / fax   023 8036 1344

or consult the RICS directory , under the category of "Boundary demarcation and disputes", to find one of 15 other chartered land surveyors (who can be identified by their membership of the Geomatics Division of RICS) who deal with boundary disputes and act as expert witness in England and Wales.


Chartered Building Surveyors deal with those boundary disputes where the party wall between two houses (or other buildings such as offices or shops) forms the property boundary. 11 of them can be found via the RICS directory , under the category of "Boundary demarcation and disputes".


Chartered Surveyors are often seen as "the property professionals" . Nearly 40 chartered surveying firms (other than land or building surveyors) do boundary disputes work and offer an expert witness service. They can also be found via the RICS directory under the category of "Boundary demarcation and disputes" .


If you and your neighbour are having difficulty in agreeing a resolution to your problem, but are not seriously enough at odds to want to take the matter to court, then you will need the services of an Arbitrator or Mediator. You can find them in Yellow Pages.


You should consult a Solicitor if you and your neighbour are sufficiently seriously at odds with each other that you cannot reach agreement even after the production of a surveyor's report or the intervention of a mediator..


If you take matters as far as a hearing in the civil courts, then you may want to be represented by a Barrister .

Whoever acts as your expert witness, once the matter reaches court the expert's duty is to the court and not to the client who is paying his fees. This makes it difficult for your surveyor to act as both advocate and expert witness.

In the interests of saving court time and litigants' money, and in line with the new Civil Procedure Rules that came into force in April 1999, the courts will in future appoint a Joint Sole Expert for each case to give expert opinion to the court. It is expected that the expert's evidence will be given in writing and that the expert will not appear in court. This does mean that if you have already taken professional advice from an expert witness and then proceeded to a court case, that same expert witness may well not be appointed by the court that hears your case.

FOR OTHER PROBLEMS

The relevant technical expert from the list below should be contacted in the first instance. It is possible that disputes could then progress through similar stages as described above for boundary disputes.

Adverse possession See "boundary disputes", above
Buildings, party walls Chartered Building Surveyor
Buildings, subsidence Chartered Building Surveyor, Civil Engineer, or Structural Engineer
Encroachment See "boundary disputes", above
Noise Local Authority Environmental Health Officer
Planning permission, contravention of Local Authority Planning Officer
Pollution Local Authority Environmental Health Officer
Right to Light Chartered Building Surveyor
Right of Support Chartered Building Surveyor
Right of Way Chartered Land Surveyor
Rubbish Local Authority Environmental Health Officer
Smoke Local Authority Environmental Health Officer
Trees, position and height of Chartered Land Surveyor
Trees, health of, policy issues concerning Arboriculturalist
Tree preservation orders Local Authority Planning Officer

This page was last updated on 23 December 2002

General Disclaimer:
The information given on this web site is of necessity of a very general nature and cannot be relied upon to meet your specific requirements. Jon Maynard FRICS cannot be held responsible for any action that may or may not be taken by anyone who accesses this site and acts upon any information found within. Whilst I hope that you may gain benefit from the information in this site, my liability can only extend to specific advice given by me after completion of a formal engagement letter.

HOME PAGE

  

Top of page