{"id":1942,"date":"2020-03-26T12:13:24","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T12:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gardencourtmediation.co.uk\/?p=1942"},"modified":"2020-03-31T16:18:28","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T15:18:28","slug":"justice-solving-housing-disputes-and-mediation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardencourtmediation.co.uk\/justice-solving-housing-disputes-and-mediation\/","title":{"rendered":"JUSTICE &#8211; Solving Housing Disputes and Mediation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gardencourtmediation.co.uk\/mediator\/david-watkinson\/\">David Watkinson<\/a> considers the proposals which suggest a new emphasis in the resolution of housing disputes. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"s3\"><b>Introduction<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"s2\">Justice, the jurists\u2019 <\/span><span class=\"s2\">organis<\/span><span class=\"s2\">ation<\/span><span class=\"s2\">, has published a report (5<\/span><span class=\"s4\">th<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> March 2020) <a href=\"https:\/\/Justice.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Solving-Housing-Disputes-report.pdf\">\u201cSolving Housing Disputes\u201d<\/a> authored by a number of lawyers (academic, practicing or retired) <\/span><span class=\"s2\">and <\/span><span class=\"s2\">chaired by Andrew Arden <\/span><span class=\"s2\">QC.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\">T<\/span>he principal<span class=\"s2\">\u00a0recommendation is to pilot the establishment of a new body, the Housing Disputes Service (HDS), which will take under its umbrella all jurisdictions, as the Courts, the Property Tribunals and the Housing and Local Government <\/span><span class=\"s2\">Ombudsmen<\/span><span class=\"s2\">, relating to housing. <\/span><span class=\"s2\">Its\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\">function will be to resolve them by a process of investigation, assessment, alternative dispute resolution and determination. The specialist staff will include lawyers, managers, investigators and surveyors. Free legal advice will be available to the occupiers except at the ADR stage<\/span><span class=\"s2\">.<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> Any determination will be subject to appeal to the traditional courts on both law and fact as appropriate. The authors acknowledge this is a bold, ambitious proposal which is likely to take years to bring into effect. And it will cost, if properly done.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"s5\"><span class=\"s3\"><b>Mediation<\/b>?<\/span> \u00a0<span class=\"s2\">\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"s5\"><span class=\"s2\">There I leave it as the report makes other proposals intended for speedier implementation which will cost little or nothing. They concern mediation\/ADR and deserve consideration in their own right. As the report observes, \u201cADR offers widely acknowledged benefits to parties, the justice system and society:\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\">resolvi<\/span><span class=\"s2\">ng disputes quickly and at far lower costs than litigation: maintaining relationships through a non-adversarial process providing the possibility of flexible and imaginative solutions\u201d (para 3.76).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"s5\"><span class=\"s3\"><b>The<\/b> <\/span><span class=\"s3\"><b>Proposals<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"s5\"><span class=\"s2\">They range from the apparently minor to the <\/span><span class=\"s2\">more fundamental. \u00a0 Overall<\/span> <span class=\"s2\">there should be provision in both the CPR and the Property Tribunal rules\u2019 <\/span><span class=\"s2\">that <\/span><span class=\"s2\">strongly<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> encourages the use of ADR\/medi<\/span><span class=\"s2\">ation in housing disputes but which<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> stop<\/span><span class=\"s2\">s<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> short of<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> actual compulsion. T<\/span><span class=\"s2\">he proposals\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\">include the <\/span><span class=\"s2\">following:-<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"s7\"><span class=\"s2\">re-visiting the housing disputes protocols in order to simplify them and make them more user-friendly<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"s7\">provide a pre-action protocol for private possession claims in addition to the current social housing one<\/li>\n<li class=\"s7\">requiring claimants in possession proceedings against both tenanted and mortgaged properties to state how they have worked with the tenant or borrower to resolve the issues between them<\/li>\n<li class=\"s7\"><span class=\"s2\">requiring parties to explain on the pre-trial questionnaire why they do not wish <\/span><span class=\"s2\">to pursue ADR, in response to an assumption that ADR is suitable for most cases<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"s7\">costs sanctions for failure to engage with ADR should be capable of imposition at an earlier stage than the conclusion of the case<\/li>\n<li class=\"s7\">the definition of \u201clegal help\u201d for the purposes of enabling legal aid provision should be extended to include advising for and acting in ADR processes without prior authority from the Legal Aid Agency<\/li>\n<li class=\"s7\"><span class=\"s2\">establishment of an ADR website<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> which identifies providers<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"s3\"><b>Conclusion<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"s2\">How much <\/span><span class=\"s2\">of this report will be<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> taken up remains to be <\/span><span class=\"s2\">seen. It<\/span><span class=\"s2\"> was not commissioned by the Government, nor has the Government shown any enthusiasm for spending money on the civil justice system over <\/span><span class=\"s2\">the\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"s2\">last ten years (rather the reverse). Three of the twelve members of the group made a dissenting report (including the two representatives of the HLPA which promotes the interest of occupiers). <\/span><span class=\"s2\">However, as above, a number of proposals chime with what are becoming mainstream views as seen in my<\/span><span class=\"s2\">\u00a0blog on <a href=\"https:\/\/garden court mediation.co.uk\/adr-and-civil-justice-paving-the-way\/\">ADR and Civil Justice<\/a>, Feb 2019 and are worth taking forward. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; David Watkinson considers the proposals which suggest a new emphasis in the resolution of housing disputes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46,123,222,221,7,139],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>JUSTICE - Solving Housing Disputes and Mediation - Garden Court Mediation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gardencourtmediation.co.uk\/justice-solving-housing-disputes-and-mediation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JUSTICE - Solving Housing Disputes and Mediation - Garden Court Mediation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; 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