Council tenants are being warned about legal firms fishing for cases to take the council to court over repairs – which could leave them waiting longer for repairs or with unexpected bills.
Residents’ representatives at housing management panel meetings for the north and east estates in the city confirmed they had either been visited by or heard from neighbours of people claiming to represent the council, asking about any repairs.
Brighton and Hove City Council has launched a page on its website urging caution when “no win no fee” companies call or knock on the door.
Instead of going through an external solicitor, the council is urging tenants to use its own complaints procedure instead.
An example given on the website was a tenant who was told to expect a £2,000 payout by the solicitors, but after they were frustrated with the wait, as the council cannot carry out the repairs during the legal process, they were told they would need to pay £7,000 in legal fees by the “no win” company.
The council had spent £13,101 on the legal process and awards of damages of costs. The tenant received nothing as the £1,500 reward was deducted from rent arrears.
In another case, a tenant was told they would win £800 but eventually received £220 more than six months after the case was completed.
Brighton and Hove City Council’s costs were £12,381, and the process took more than 14 months.
Interim head of repairs Mikila Beck said: “What we’re getting a lot of is the tenants contacting us saying someone has knocked on their door and said ‘have you got any outstanding repairs’ and they’re under the impression that it’s a member of council staff and it isn’t.
“We would carry our council ID, we would show our council ID and we don’t cold call, you would have a pre-booked appointment.
“We’ve had tenants that have ended up signing up to a disrepair solicitor and then they’re not able to get out of it.”
At the north area panel meeting on Tuesday 9 September, Hollingdean Residents’ Association secretary Ian Beck said people in the area had received phone calls offering repairs who then turn out to be from “no-win-no-fee” companies.
Mr Beck said: “My advice to residents is do not let them in unless they’ve got proper council badges.
“This seems to be a problem now, I don’t know where they’re getting the details of the properties, I’ve had one myself offering to do a repair on my house that didn’t need doing.”
Sylvan Hall representative Barney Miller asked if the council is reporting firms who are cold calling and misrepresenting themselves which Ms Beck confirmed is the case, but investigations are taking a long time.
At the east area housing panel on Wednesday 10 September, Woodingdean Community Association chair, former councillor and alderwoman Dee Simson said Woodingdean is a no cold callers zone.
She said: “Cold callers really get hammered if they come to Woodingdean because it goes around like wildfire on the Facebook page.
“This is such a different thing because they think they’re from the council. I’m thinking how can we deal with this through Neighbourhood Watch, if they’re knocking on the door saying they’re from the council, it’s difficult.”
Director of homes and investment Martin Reid asked for residents’ representatives to work closely with the council to encourage people to report their repairs rather than put it off.
He said: “The housing revenue account where this money comes from is the tenants’ account. The best practice is to work with residents’ reps to try and encourage residents to report to our services, not to go through other routes in the first instance.
“Please report to us first, we will then look at the repair issue and take that forward rather than hold on for someone who says ‘I can get you some money’.”
Of course people should ignore cold callers and people fishing for business, but it is important that people experiencing significant problems in their homes that the council is failing to put right can access sound legal advice if the council is not adhering to the legal housing duties it has.
Yes, people should pursue complaints via the council’s own formal complaints process, but the council really needs to do better and properly log things as complaints, rather than logging most issues as ‘service requests’. Residents have a right to take their complaints to the Housing Ombudsman Service, but all too often they aren’t able to as the council fails to log complaints correctly, and are slow to issue stage 2 responses. They need to do better.
Residents also need to be aware that there are many reputable charities and organisations in the city who can give advice on housing law, Brighton Housing Trust to name one, and Shelter nationally. So if the report things to the council, and the council do nothing, reputable charities offering housing advice are worth speaking to.
While I agree that residents need to take care and avoid cold callers and legal firms fishing for business, the council should not try and dissuade people from seeking legal advice from housing advice charities, and if the council really wants to improve things, they should adhere to their own complaints process, and they should undertake repairs and address things like mould and damp in a timely way. The best way to prevent residents being tempted to try and sue the council for disrepair, is to make sure their homes aren’t in disrepair in the first place.
I thought door knockers were made illegal ??
No, although it is quite strict about how they conduct themselves. Council could set up No Cold Calling Zones with Trading Standards. Then, approaching residents for home repairs is unlawful once signs are in place.
Perhaps if the repairs service was actually performing, rather than just reporting they are, there wouldn’t be this issue with outstanding repairs. The Covid excuse is no longer viable, but if you see repair vans around the city, you’ll often see staff sitting in their vans on their phones for long periods of time or reading a paper.
The council needs to look at the management of the repairs service on a granular level, as its clearly not working and they’re still using additional contractors to reduce their backlog, it would be interesting to see how much the transition of bringing it back under the councils direct control has cost to date (including the use of contractors), in comparison to when Mears (boo) ran the service, still I doubt that information would ever be made public…
Especially around lunchtime for up to an hour at times!
Although the data shown suggests the backlog is, in fact, being reduced and trending positively after several months during which the service was “treading water”, with the figures. We can also see the time for routine repairs coming down as well, even if you don’t consider the long-standing issues that can skew the average.
And we can see this in the information that’s provided publicly at the panels.
More representatives should be encouraged to attend the Housing Management Panels across the city. I’ve noticed that the areas where a group goes tend to be better serviced, which I think has to do with being a strong advocate for their hyperlocal and having the capacity to chase up on issues.