‘ANOTHER’ DAY IN THE LIFE OF SURMOUNT INVESTIGATIONS

Back in April this year we posted one of our most popular blog entries, which was a breakdown of a ‘day in the life’ of an investigator within the Surmount Investigations team.

We did that because we’re so often told how ‘exciting’ our job must be as PIs and asked what a typical day is like for a private investigator and in truth, no two days are often the same and we frequently break our days into different facets:

We have ‘Operational’ days, where we are out on the ground completing surveillance or investigative enquiries.

We have what we call ‘Paper’ days, where we are office based completing electronic enquiries or putting together the required paperwork for future process serves, due diligence on upcoming jobs and the like.

For this week’s blog we thought we’d dip back into the diary and show another day in the life of an investigator at Surmount:

 

Friday 28th September 2018

 

0830hrs

A prospective solicitor client has asked to meet us for coffee to discuss whether we are able to become their ‘in-house’ tracing agents after hearing great things about what we are able to achieve for one of their friends at another firm south of the river. We meet at Central Station to discuss what Surmount are able to do for them.

 

1010hrs

We head over to the NE6 area to complete a pre-repossession report on behalf of one of our national clients and to discuss potential re-housing options with long-term debtors. We are not successful in reconnecting the debtor with our client as the property has been abandoned and left in a high state of disrepair. We take a series of evidential photographs of the damage.

 

1130hrs

We drive over to a village in the back ends of Durham to complete an extensive interview with a driver who has been accused of driving recklessly without due care and attention, resulting in several people being left injured. We take a detailed statement from them, photograph all of their documents and carry out a robust study of their damaged vehicle.

 

1315hrs

Our previous interviewee claims that the accident occurred on a quiet B-road out in the middle of nowhere because of their car being ‘charged’ by a deer that came out of nowhere. We visited the scene and completed a comprehensive LOCUS report, drawing up a sketch plan, photographing the scene itself, assessing the quality of the road and looking at potential nearby houses/people who could attest to ‘deer’ flow in the area as nothing about the location suggested this was a location where such an appearance would be likely/practical.

We eat on the move for lunch as we’re completing this LOCUS report because there is no time within the day to stop.

 

1500hrs

We move on to the DH7 area where we carry out another pre-repossession report on behalf of a different national client. This time we are successful in meeting with the debtors at the property to discuss re-housing options and we are able to reconnect the debtors to our client in order for repayment options to be discussed regarding their defaulted mortgage. As a result of our negotiations with them live at the scene we are able to once again place a ‘stay’ on the impending eviction.

 

1630hrs

We drive over to the SR1 area and complete a process serve of a statutory demand on an individual.

 

1815hrs

Having endured the Friday evening rush hour traffic back along the A1 we get back to our office and get the certificate of service for the process serve written up immediately and sent over to our solicitor client. We then write up our report for both re-repossession reports and time/date stamp all of our photographs then send them off to our clients too.

The LOCUS report has a longer deadline on it than the other jobs so we securely store all of our evidence and notes for that in order to complete it on Monday morning.

 

2040hrs

We close up ‘shop’ for the day and go get ourselves a well earned ice-cold pint of lager for our troubles!

 

… And that’s another ‘day in the life’ here at Surmount Investigations.