isInitialized - Backing field of lateinit var is not accessible at this point

Question

I'm trying to check if a lateinit property has been initialized.
In Kotlin 1.2 we now have the isInitialized method for that. It works when I do that in the class where the lateinit property is declared. But when I try to call this from another class I get the following warning:

Backing field of 'lateinit var foo: Bar' is not accessible at this point

My model class (let's say Person) is written in Java
Two other classes (let's say Test1 and Test2) are written in Kotlin

Example:

class Test1 {
    lateinit var person: Person

    fun method() {
        if (::person.isInitialized) {
            // This works
        }
    }
}

-

class Test2 {
    lateinit var test1: Test1

    fun method() {
        if (test1::person.isInitialized) {
            // Error
        }
    }
}

Any chance to get this working?

My current workaround is to make a method in Test1 which returns isInitialized from the person property.

fun isPersonInitialized(): Boolean = ::person.isInitialized

//in Test2:
if (test1.isPersonInitialized()) {
    // Works
}

Answer 1

A really simple workaround to the constraints described by the accepted answer is the following:

class LateClass {
    lateinit var thing: Thing
    fun isThingInitialized() = ::thing.isInitialized
}

class Client {
    val lateClass = LateClass()
    ... things happen ...
    if (lateClass.isThingInitialized() {
        // do stuff with lateClass.thing, safely
    }
}