‘A Practical Guide to Responding to Housing Disrepair and Unfitness Claims – Second Edition’ by Iain Wightwick

Description

Disrepair (or more properly “housing conditions”) claims continue to rise in number – they have exploded since the first edition of this book was published in 2021. The new edition should be more helpful to those receiving and responding to them than its predecessor, as it addresses the changes in the law and is more comprehensive.

The increase in claims has been fuelled by the continued demise of the personal injury claims market for claimant solicitors. Almost all the major firms have turned to housing claims, and many new firms have entered the market.  The scramble for tenant clients has caused many claimant lawyers to initiate ever less meritorious claims. Landlords will be familiar with the often grossly exaggerated lists of defects in claimant surveyors’ reports and the overpricing of works allegedly necessary to remedy them. The websites advertising such legal services limit their offer of help to social housing tenants, leaving private tenants without lawyers. Private rented housing stock is in a far worse state of repair and condition than social housing.

Housing conditions claims are not just wasteful in terms of officer time and finances. They can be very stressful for those involved, particularly where landlords face large numbers of claims and their staff are already busy planning and carrying out repairs, maintenance and improvements. All social landlords would prefer to direct their resources to repairs rather than legal fees.

The book is more about the strategies needed to deal with disrepair litigation rather than the substantive law.

Many tenants do not want to sue their landlord, and it is indisputable that most of the dissatisfaction which they have with the state of their home would be resolved if they engage in a lawyer-free problem-solving exercise before engaging solicitors.

Fortunately, the Court of Appeal has just handed down a very helpful decision in Churchill v Merthyr Tydfil Conty Borough Council [2023] EWHC 1416 CA. It is now possible for one party in litigation to ask the court to stop the claim while alternative dispute resolution is attempted.  In social housing this is best achieved through the operation of the landlord’s internal complaints process (“ICP”).

The application of that philosophy to disrepair claims will dramatically reduce the damages and legal costs currently being paid by social landlords. Many of the complaints which tenants are making about housing conditions should never have involved lawyers. You’ll need to buy the book to find out more about it though!

If ADR through the ICP fails to address the tenant’s wants and needs, and litigation continues, the book is intended to guide the landlord through the process and to provide some protection against significant awards of damages and/or costs.

If you are a tenant’s representative, the book will help you to weed out good claims from the many which are at present gratuitously and unnecessarily issued.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Iain Wightwick is a barrister and mediator working from Unity Street Chambers in Bristol. He is a specialist property lawyer, with particular interest in landlord and tenant issues. His practice includes all areas of residential disputes especially in social housing, with a focus on neighbour nuisance and related anti-social behaviour matters (‘neighbours from hell’), housing conditions/disrepair and homelessness.

This is his second book. He wrote “A Practical Guide to Antisocial Behaviour Injunctions” in 2019, the second edition of which was published in 2023.

He has thirty-five years’ experience of acting for social landlords and tenants and a reputation for creative, cost-controlling approaches to litigation and to alternative dispute resolution.

He has been instructed to advise and appear in many housing conditions claims, mostly for landlords but sometimes for tenants. He has a unique approach amongst his colleagues to the issue. This centres around his belief that social landlords should be able to devote their resources to providing quality accommodation rather than paying lawyers’ fees.

Shortly after the first Housing Disrepair (now Housing Conditions’) Protocol was published, he concluded that tenants should be directed to alternative dispute resolution rather than instructing lawyers to pursue the steps set out in the Housing Conditions Protocol and going to court.

This approach has saved his clients very substantial sums in legal costs, which in turn has benefited the tenants of those landlords. He wants to share the method with all landlords, with the aim of reducing the number of these claims and helping others to do the same.

CONTENTS

Preface
Acknowledgements

Table of Cases
Table of Legislation

Introduction

PART I: Avoiding Claims for Disrepair
Chapter 1: Estate Management Policies

PART II: RESPONDING TO THE LETTER OF CLAIM
Chapter 2: The Letter of Claim
Chapter 3: The Letter of Claim as a Guide

PART III: THE PRE-ACTION PROTOCOL AND ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION
Chapter 4: The Fundamental Importance of the Pre-Action Protocol
Chapter 5: When Is Notice Not Required?
Chapter 6: The Protocol Requires a Claimant to Give Details of Notice
Chapter 7: Counterclaims for Disrepair
Chapter 8: Alternative Dispute Resolution
Chapter 9: Making Sure Your Complaints Process Is Fit for Purpose
Chapter 10: The Mechanics of the Complaints Process
Chapter 11: The Identity of the Claimant
Chapter 12: The Defects Alleged – Does Liability Arise?
Chapter 13: The Defects Alleged
Chapter 14: Disclosure in the Pre-Action Protocol

PART IV: AFTER PROCEEDINGS ARE ISSUED
Chapter 15: Expert Evidence
Chapter 16: Applications for Summary Judgement / Strike Out / Stay
Chapter 17: Drafting the Defence
Chapter 18: Transfer and Allocation to Track
Chapter 19: Disclosure and Inspection
Chapter 20: Witness Statements

PART V: PREPARING FOR TRIAL
Chapter 21: The Trial

Epilogue/Conclusion
Appendix 1: Example Stage 3 Complaints Finding
Appendix 2: Example Defence
Bibliography
Index