You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Majority of disrepair claims from tenants are genuine, says social landlord lawyer
The majority of legal disrepair claims from tenants are genuine, a lawyer who represents social landlords has said.
Speaking at a session on disrepair claims at the Homes UK conference in London, Helen Tucker, a partner in the housing management team at Anthony Collins Solicitors, said that while she did not have the statistics, “the majority [of claims] would be genuine”.
Her comments come as the number of legal disrepair claims being brought against social landlords has significantly increased in recent years.
Inside Housing’s research found that councils alone are paying out millions every year.
There are several reasons behind the increase, including ageing housing stock, social landlords failing to do repairs, and near non-existent legal aid.
A big drive has been claims farmer-type lawyers coming into the market, many of which are located in the North West.
As a result, social landlord lawyers have reported an increase in spurious claims.
READ MORE
But when asked what proportion of claims are genuine, Ms Tucker, who also jointly heads up the housing litigation services in the firm’s Birmingham office, said “the majority”.
However, she added that there are some cases where tenants are going straight to lawyers rather than first using the landlord’s complaints procedure.
Ms Tucker said that the costs of claims are often “hugely disproportionate” to the damages awarded to tenants.
“You might agree damages of £1,500, and a couple of weeks later we will often get a bill from their solicitors with costs of between £12,000 [and] £60,000,” she explained.
She advised social landlords to improve record-keeping with decent systems, as well as improve repairs and planned maintenance.
She also suggested trying access injunctions when a tenant has been advised not to let landlords in after the legal process has started.
Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, whose mould-ridden home led to the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak, did not try to access the property and do the repair work while there was an open disrepair claim.
Elsewhere during the session, a tenant representative and former environmental health officer in the audience said he used to advise a council on court cases.
He said: “It was quite clear that this ambulance-chasing firm from the North West of England was milking money out of the system.
“The whole process was designed purely to make costs and nothing to do with the tenants.”
He stated he would tell the council to “just do the damn work”.
“Do it immediately and let them know the timescales to clamp down on these court costs, because this is such a tremendous waste of money,” he added.
Sign up for our legal and regulation newsletter
Already have an account? Click here to manage your newsletters
