We have a team of fee earners dealing with housing disrepair work. Team members are all property litigators. The Property Litigation Team has dealt with housing disrepair claims for Local Authority, Housing Association and Private Landlord clients.
In the mid 1990s and early 2000s housing disrepair claims increased very dramatically. This came about because insurance companies, who were encouraged to move into the litigation market as a result of the withdrawal of legal aid from personal injury claims, turned their attention to housing disrepair claims. There is evidence of insurers targeting housing estates and working door to door signing up tenants for litigation against their landlords. This resulted in a flood of litigation for social housing providers.
In response to the demand we set up a specialist team and developed a case management system with a fixed fee package available for dealing with these claims.
Whilst the flood of claims has diminished and those cases which are brought are more manageable, housing disrepair is still very much an issue for social landlords and will continue to be so with the deadline for Decent Homes standard implementation drawing ever closer, coupled with the Housing Health and Safety Rating System introduced by the Housing Act 2004.
We have acted for a number of local authority clients including Leeds City Council, Birmingham City Council, North Tyneside Council, Scarborough Council and South Tyneside MBC, as well as Housing Associations.
We offer in-house work shops for clients or potential clients focusing on avoiding or reducing the risk of claims and minimising the impact of claims that are brought.
We can offer a range of services to landlords facing these claims from occasional advice on law on tactics through to handling claims from beginning to end.
We host the quarterly housing forum of the North East local authorities and Housing Associations who meet to share experience of defending disrepair claims and discussing tactics as well as general housing issues. As a consequence of the establishment of the National Disrepair Forum our North East forum acts as a regional branch. We have supported the hosts of the last four annual Housing Disrepair conferences and are regular speakers on this issue and the associated issue of Costs and CFA's.