Well the on going saga of my building repairs continues.

It has reached the point where I need a lawyer to take on the council and a few other things.

1) – the council want to charge the owners to make good bad work done damaged caused by the contractors they appointed -as the contractors went bust ( as I was told on here) under “third party (rights against insurers) act 1930 a claim against the companies insurers is possible but the council deny this. This is worth many thousands to me and many tens of thousands to the overall project

2) there is an apportionment of the costs between owners to sort out

3) there is substandard work to get redone that the council are stating is satisfactory. I have an engineer preparing reports.

The two solicitors I have used in Edinburgh do not have expertise in this sort of are. Any clues how to find one / who would be good?

Ta

Mark Peggie at Mowat Hall Dick (Leith) has been great in the three properties that I have bought and sold. Uber friendly and efficient, not sure if he specialises in this sort of stuff but he’d soon let you know or point you in the right direction.
Hope thats of some use TJ

Ta

Its not really a conveyancing solicitors thing but I wil try them.

We are a small property development/investment company and we use DLA Piper for all our work including construction related litigation. May be a sledgehammer to crack a nut though and they are not cheap. I can introduce/provide contact names/details if you want.

Ta dazzlingboy. I will just contact them myself if they seem appropriate

back when i lived in edinburgh all my property shenanigans (and there were a few!) i got colin blaikie in broughton street to handle. i can;t find a website and it may be he’s more into conveyancing now than the lawyerliness but it might be worth a sounding out.

Ta Swiss – sounds like more the guy

TJ – DLA Edinburgh – Construction – Paul Wilson. Litigation – Joan Devine would be reasonable places to start.

Ta muchly.

I’d say you want an agressive wee firm rather than corporate bloaters like DLA etc.

Archibald Harley acted against me and did well.

Lols @ Al. I like the reccomendation

Ta

They look spot on Al – ta

Sorry I meant Archibald Campbell Harley.

Oh and I’d include my firm and many others as corporate bloaters.

EDIT just checked the file – it was Graham Reid.

I found their website ta and email sent.

not the one at the foot of Leith Walk. Mr Bean would have done a better job 😕

I don’t want to start a “one is better than other” rant, but speaking from much personal and professional experience, we used AC&H for years but found them lacking so moved to DLA a few years ago. YMMV of course!

Good luck though with the Council. Our experience of common repair schemes (just completed a £300k+ one in Gorgie) is that the Council are very hard to deal with in these circumstances. You really need to get all interested parties organised. The Council’s stance is generally one of “who cares what documents you have or what your experts say – we’re the Council – what we say goes” as they realise very few people will organise themselves to challenge a word they say. Frustrating experience – I don’t envy you especially when dealing with a personal property rather than a work/business scenario.

At least you have had a response from Edinburgh Council. My experience is that they ignore all correspondence (despite their charter to reply within 10 days).

After some months and several letters a phone call to my councillor had a comprehensive e-mail response sent to me at 7:30 the next morning! Somebody obviously felt they needed to be in early that morning, or else.

Orange – its been going on for 5 years now. To get a first response to a complaint took 5 weeks, after 6 I have no response to a second complaint.

Hopefully the next correspondence they get from me is a “see you in court you owe me a zillion quid” I have an appointment with a lawyer who knows about this stuff tomorrow.

I got ’em bang to rights!