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5/12/25 4:43 pm
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Landlords are being urged to share their experiences of housing disrepair claims and the role of claims management firms.
A government call for evidence wants their views on cases where tenants in England consider seeking redress through the county court by bringing a claim against their landlord for housing disrepair.
It wants to understand the experiences of landlords, tenants, solicitors and claims management companies of handling housing disrepair cases. This includes how frequently and why tenants are making claims, what the process looks like for tenants and landlords, and the outcomes.
The government says it has heard reports of claims management companies and solicitors targeting tenants who might be more vulnerable to exploitation, encouraging claims when it may not be in the tenant’s best interest, failing to warn tenants of risks involved, and offering counterproductive advice such as encouraging a tenant not to let landlords in to carry out inspections or fix issues. This can result in tenants having to live with disrepair for longer and discourage them from accessing more effective redress routes.
It explains that measures to ban referral fees and reforming how ‘no win, no fee’ arrangements work for low value personal injury claims have been introduced, including rules to deter exaggerated or fraudulent claims. It says: “We want to gather views on whether lessons from the approach taken to personal injury claims could be applied to housing disrepair claims.
“Banning referral fees would tackle the issue of claimants being passed to the firm willing to pay the highest referral fees, rather than to the one most appropriate for their claim. It would enable a claimant to choose a solicitor based on their specific needs, rather than being referred to the highest bidder.”
You can take part by completing the online survey.
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