Home Truths

While a government consultation on the regulation of social housing is drawing to a close, cavity wall insulation claims have also hit the headlines as hundreds of homeowners may face legal bills because their cases were not properly insured. ATE Account Manager Emma Wilson looks at the implications for firms.

It took the death of a young child, Awaab Ishak, in 2020 to bring about legislative changes designed to protect tenants in social housing. Now, a consultation on the details of how this protection will be implemented and enforced is underway.

Last year’s Social Housing (Regulation) Act, which received Royal Assent in July, requires landlords of social housing to investigate and remedy health hazards reported to them, within specific timeframes. The latest consultation on Awaab’s Law, launched on January 9th, is designed to gather the views of all parties with an interest in the sector and its regulation.

Specifically, the consultation is seeking views on proposals for the timescales allowed for initial investigations of potential hazards, commencing and completing remedial works and emergency repairs.

The consultation also addresses the requirements for landlords to provide written summaries of their findings after investigating potential hazards, record-keeping during the period that works are being carried out, and the circumstances in which residents may need to be temporarily rehoused.

In other housing news, the legal sector and conditional fee agreements have fallen under the media spotlight in recent weeks, following the collapse of another law firm handling cavity wall insulation claims. The latest failure may have left more than a thousand claimants facing large adverse costs bills.

The precise number of people impacted, if and how their cases were properly insured and who will ultimately foot the bills is still to be clarified. Again, however, the importance of insuring all cases with a properly regulated and secure after the event policy has been underlined.

ARAG has been providing after the event insurance policies to law firms and their clients for more than fifteen years.

If you would like to know more about ARAG’s Recourse Complete and Recourse Options policies that are can be used to insure the costs in a wide variety of case types, please get in touch:

Emma Wilson
ATE Account Manager for North West, West Midlands and Bristol
07825 291 583 - emma.wilson@arag.co.uk

Lisa Abrahams
ATE Account Manager for London & South East
07920 136 921 - lisa.abrahams@arag.co.uk

Jonathan Bassey
ATE Account Manager for Yorkshire, East Midlands & North East
07795458719 - jonathan.bassey@arag.co.uk

Mike Knight
South Wales, South West and Scotland:
07795636391 - mike.knight@arag.co.uk