Our Past...

James Tait of Langrigg was born at Edenside in Kelso in 1816. For a Scotsman born in the early part of the 19th Century, he had a remarkably long life, dying in October 1899 aged 83. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh and having chosen law as his profession, he served his apprenticeship with his uncle in Edinburgh before being admitted to the Society of Writers to the Signet in 1839. In 1842 he moved back to Kelso to set up in business and to be the Agent for the National Bank. As was common at the time, he had the dual title of Bank Agent and Solicitor.

He was joined in the legal business by his son David W B Tait in 1880 and for nearly 100 years the firm was known by the name, Messrs James & David W B Tait. The firm shortened its name to Taits, WS in 1988. Father and son were very prominent in Victorian and then Edwardian Kelso with leading roles in the commercial life of the town. In 1849 James Tait married Elizabeth, the daughter of James Stormonth Darling, also a solicitor in Kelso at the time, but despite this close family connection the two firms of James & David W B Tait and P & J Stormonth Darling remained separate legal practices in the town, as they still are today.

And Present...

The present day legal practice and estate agency is still located in the same prominent building in a corner of Kelso’s famous Square. The firm provides a legal service to a large and ever growing number of individuals and businesses living and operating in the town and the surrounding area.

The firm have for many decades acted for Kelso’s pre-eminent building firm, M & J Ballantyne Ltl(www.mjballantyne.co.uk). Modern Kelso has been shaped to a very large degree by M & J Ballantyne Limited and the firm are very proud of their association with and part in the post war development of the town.

At the start of the new millennium ideas began to hatch for the continued development of the firm and the ground floor of the building is now a dedicated property centre operating under the brand name “View”. View was launched in early 2003 to provide an enhanced service to clients selling their property in and about Kelso and further afield.

As members of the Borders Solicitors Property Centre (www.bspc.co.uk), we offer all our clients the unrivalled opportunities offered by the full coloured Property Guide that is distributed throughout the country together with the highly regarded website. At Taits, we aim to offer first class service to assist our clients with all legal issues.

The development of our View Property Centre on the ground floor will continue. The opportunities to offer new services are virtually limitless. Apart from having dedicated staff to bring your property to the widest possible audience, we can offer a number of solutions to the problems that vendors commonly encounter. In fact, we aim to solve all the problems that might emerge to make what can be an enormously stressful experience just as smooth as possible.