Nottingham housing claims rise as city council spends thousands on lawyers

Nottingham City Council is spending £350,000 on extending contracts for temporary legal staff as it continues to deal with a rise in housing disrepair claims. The Labour-run authority says that claims are continuing to rise and that it does not have enough staff in-house to deal with all the legal work.

A small group of temporary staff, the equivalent of nearly seven full-time staff, have therefore had contracts extended. In a report published on the matter on November 12, the council says: "The number of disrepair claims is continuing to rise which inevitably will lead to additional litigation work.

"Legal services currently do not have the capacity for this increased litigation in-house and therefore it is necessary to use the services of locum solicitors... Due to the large amount of housing disrepair claims expenditure has already exceeded the current budget."

All costs of the temporary staffing extension will be met by the council's Housing Revenue Account - which is ringfenced to be spent on its social housing stock. The council also says that housing disrepair claims continue to be a focus of "volume" litigation from law firms across the country.

The city council previously said it was hoping the government would introduce fixed costs for housing disrepair claims, essentially a cap on the amount the council would have to pay out for a successful claim. Firms including Browne Jacobson have warned that fixed costs would make the models of most legal firms "financially unviable" in terms of housing cases.

Yet the council now says fixed costs may be introduced towards the end of 2025, though the authority adds: "Volumes are not likely to decrease until at least then." Social housing tenants on estates across Nottingham were previously warned to be on the look out for bogus 'claims farmers', the terms used to describe people or companies encouraging people to make legal claims, with imposters said to have been making "substantial profits" from people in the city.