Page 104 - Solving Housing Disputes

accessibility from a user standpoint. That group should assess and make
recommendations as to whether certain types of disputes ought to migrate
from the County Court to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) or
vice versa.

The Housing Complaints Resolution Service

4.13 In February 2018, the MHCLG released a consultation paper, Strengthening
Consumer Redress in the Housing Market. The paper explored a range of issues
297
in housing disputes and explored how to consolidate maladministration
providers but did not consider the overlapping role of courts and tribunals in
disputes. A key feature of the final report was the recommendation for a
“Housing Complaints Resolution Service” (HCRS). This would be a “single
point of access for all the current schemes in housing that offer access to redress
and alternative dispute resolution”, which would ultimately become a new
service to “to cover all housing consumers including tenants and leaseholders of
social and private rented housing as well as purchasers of new build homes and
298
users of all residential property agents.” The development of the HCRS would
be overseen by a Redress Reform Working Group. Gaps in coverage would be
299
plugged in large part through the establishment of a New Homes Ombudsman,
and through a legislated requirement for all private landlords to belong to a
300
redress scheme.

4.14 If there is no desire to establish a single housing court, or a single Housing or
Property Ombudsman, our Working Party is of the view that an expanded version
of the HCRS represents an excellent opportunity to promote access to justice,
coherence in the current landscape and to consolidate housing advice providers
into an easily navigable online portal. The intention is to promote convenience
for users, by overcoming the complexity and disaggregation of the landscape,

297 Including how the current redress landscape works, the case for streamlining redress services, how
improvements could be made to ‘in house’ complaints processes and how to fill the gaps in access to
redress services in housing with a particular focus on buyers of new build homes and private rented sector
tenants https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/fi
le/684843/Stregthening_Redress_in_Housing_Consultation.pdf

298 MHCLG, Strengthening Consumer Redress in the Housing Market, p. 9.

299 Ibid p. 11.

300 Ibid p. 42.

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