Only one in five legal actions reach the High Court with the other four being settled at Mediation. There is an implicit requirement on both Claimants and Defendants that they try to settle before the case reaches the High Court.

A Mediation Meeting attended by both parties and their lawyers typically takes place before a professional mediator and usually lasts a day. The mediator, who may be a former High Court judge or a professionally qualified mediator, opens the meeting and then reverts to shuttle diplomacy after the opposing parties have retired to separate rooms.

The Mediation Meeting roughly represents the halfway stage in the trial of passage to a full High Court hearing, both in terms of costs and time involved. The Claimants and the Defendants make their Claim or Defence and Counter Claim and evidence available to their opponent and to the Mediator usually a week prior to the meeting.

If the meeting does not resolve the dispute then both parties proceed with Discovery whereby each is obliged to produce more detailed information requested by the other side and witness statements are taken in preparation for the trial.

While every case is different the cost of bringing a dispute to the point where both sides agree to a Mediation meeting is usually around half the eventual cost of a trial that may last five or six days.

The biggest single deterrent for Claimants in starting legal action is not only the fees for the solicitor and the barrister. It is also the cost of uncovering the vital evidence.

This cost can easily be more than double the cost of the solicitors and barristers up to a Mediation meeting. The research is all-important and time-consuming and it needs to be carried out with skill and diligence. The expertise, experience and instincts of a first-class investigative journalist are required – and so too is an understanding of the law, a keenly developed sense of strategy and the undoubted ability to dig out information from the most unlikely sources.

Legal Investigation Services encompasses these skills and high-powered and negotiating experience which can be applied to help besieged property buyers.