Page 117 - Solving Housing Disputes

V. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 This report sets out a range of recommendations for the housing dispute system
within the context of great change. The Rented Homes Bill has recently been
introduced and represents a radical shakeup to renting in England and Wales.
Gone will be section 21 no fault possession, and while compensatory grounds will
likely be introduced, the Bill is an opportunity to forge greater stability and longer
relationships between landlord and tenant in the sector.

5.2 Government’s desire to improve the situation for renters will need to be met by
changes to the dispute resolution system. This report sets out recommendations
for how to deliver an improved system. The starting point must be recognition
that the current system has many flaws, that housing rights are a nullity without
the realistic prospect of enforcing them and that traditional adversarial methods
for resolving housing disputes may not be the best or most effective way of
dealing with housing problems.

5.3 Each chapter of this report sets out various approaches and recommendations to
improve the situation, which are not mutually exclusive.

5.4 However, modifications to current processes and harmonisation of the system will
not see a fundamentally different approach taken to housing dispute resolution.
The broad array of interests that underpin disputes remain unresolved and
mediative methods that might sustain and inform housing relationships are not
common practice. It is for these reasons that the majority of the Working Party
supported the recommendation to pilot the Housing Disputes Service.

5.5 The motivation for the HDS was to explore an approach which recognises that
housing disputes are sustained by varied problems and interests which single issue
adjudicative decision-making cannot address. The HDS would adopt an
inquisitorial approach, addressing all aspects of the relationship which require
resolution whether or not the particular complaint which has given rise to its
involvement, as well as addressing underlying problems, such as benefits issues,
mental health and family issues inherent in housing disputes. It would take a
mediative approach to disputes to encourage and facilitate a new culture between
tenants and landlords. Underlying issues and motivations are to be brought to the
surface and reconciled in a manner which allows parties to maintain relations
together after the dispute.

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