Inside Housing – Home – Housing associations undervaluing cost of repairs in legal proceedings

Members of the new Housing Condition Strategy Group Members of the group include housing association Onward Homes, Stockport Council, Matthew Wilson, a partner at law firm Clarke Willmott, and Giles Peaker, a partner at Anthony Gold.
Jonathan Milner, chair of the Housing Condition Strategy Group, spoke via video to open the session. 
Mr Milner, a chartered surveyor and member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), said: “The aim of the group is to consider issues within this area of law and the expert witness’s perspective and in turn consider how we can tackle the issues.
“Traditionally, the role of the chartered surveyor in expert witness cases has been in low volume, higher value claims. 
“It’s been a niche within which a smaller number of surveyors have operated.
“With the increase in housing condition repair claims, there has been a movement to higher volume, lower value cases.”
He added: “With the tragic events that led to the creation of Awaab’s Law, fuel poverty, energy crisis and cost of living issues, this created a perfect storm of publicity that increased the number of surveyors operating in the market.”
Mr Milner said there is a “shortage of experienced surveyors, who understand the nuances this type of work brings, and the skills shortage has meant that lesser experienced surveyors have come into the marketplace”.
He said there was “increased concern” about the quality of expert witness functions being performed by RICS members, while the body put out an alert “requiring immediate action” from its members to “address the evident failure of some members to comply with mandatory standards”. 
“The Housing Conditions Strategy Group acknowledges this and seeks to assist this through collaboration and guidance with parties to address these issues and also to look at those upcoming challenges,” he said. 
Phil Bigelow, a solicitor with Driscoll Kingston, also a member of the new group, said one of the main issues “is the quality of the evidence”. 
He added: “Approximately five, six years ago, you noticed an entrenchment in claimants and defendant’s positions.
“[At that time] there was more of an appetite to have single joint experts than there is now. 
“Parties are becoming entrenched in their positions to where there’s challenges to the experts’ evidence for numerous reasons. Some experts are viewed as a ‘hatchet man’, some experts are viewed as one sided.
“We want to move away from that.”
He said there used to be a “collaborative approach to trying to get issues resolved quite quickly”.



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