Hundreds of records arrive daily in courts across the country in which the Enforcement Agents describe such different realities, ranging from the state of conservation of a property to the report of a judicial proceeding.
The courts are, therefore, very familiar with the dynamics of recognizing and valuing these reports, made by professionals who, in their professional DNA, have to serve in the field as auxiliaries of justice.
The ability of an Enforcement Agent to go to a location to describe a reality is so relevant to the court that the Code of Civil Procedure provides for the possibility of qualified non-judicial checks being carried out.
The great difficulty of the courts is in knowing and ascertaining the facts that support the dispute. Without being sure of the extent of damage caused by a tenant to a property, how can the judge determine the fair value of the compensation to be received by the landlord?
If it is not known where the right of way is, how can it be legally recognized? How can I prove that the noise made in the cafe disturbs and violates my right to rest?
In addition to these difficulties, many disputes reach the judicial route because, knowing this, the parties play with the ignorance of the facts and the difficulty of these being investigated in court. These are the typical cases in which the judge has no other means of ascertaining the “truth” beyond testimonial evidence, sometimes instrumentalized.
But facts are facts and their determination is essential to the delivery of fair decisions. To that extent, the carrying out of non-judicial verifications qualified by Enforcement Agent and verification records by Solicitor are adequate mechanisms to prevent many of these conflicts from proceeding to court.
Carrying out records of verification, which is now beginning to take root in Portugal, is a very common practice in French-speaking countries where the counterparts of Solicitors and Enforcement Agents already have a lot of experience in this matter.
If you have any of the problems reported in this article, don't complicate it: always count on the Solicitor's help, a professional qualified to advise you on this and other matters.
Author: Rui Miguel Simão is Solicitor and Enforcement Agent
Note: Article published under the partnership between the Sul Informação and the Order of Solicitors and Enforcement Agents
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