Site Visits

Why it is important to view land

I always make a site visit because I don’t feel able to offer definitive advice, which the client will be relying on, without first seeing the land concerned.

Some lawyers will not make a site visit but rather ask the client to come to their office and describe the situation, and then write a letter to the person the client is in dispute with. Such lawyers reason that at this initial stage they are not looking for a full understanding of the situation as the law would view it but just looking for a plausible argument which can be used in correspondence with a view to reaching some kind of resolution. If a resolution can be reached with one or two letters then that might turn out to be less expensive way of handling the situation.

But what often happens is that there have to be a series of letters over many months, not just one or two, and ultimately no resolution is reached. At this point the lawyer will either themselves make a site visit and obtain more information, or else engage a specialist who will make a site visit and advise on the full legal position and the options for progressing the matter. So if matters turn out like this, not carrying out a site visit to begin with will have turned out to be a false economy.

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