Page 145 - Solving Housing Disputes

improvements in current processes, while the later meetings were mainly
concerned with the HDS. Consequently, there was limited opportunity to
question either of the main assumptions of the proponents of the Housing
Disputes Service, namely that the adversarial system does not enable housing
problems to be resolved in a satisfactory manner and should be swept away,
and that improvements in the current court system are not capable of
providing redress. Nor was it possible to investigate just how, on an
operational level, the HDS is to be set up, staffed, funded, administered and
regulated, not to mention how the “problem solving” culture of the HDS can
be reconciled with the vindication of legal rights and the enforcement of
norms of lawful behaviour which are what citizens look to the courts to
provide.

Proposals for reform
43. In opposing the concept of the HDS, we do not seek to disguise the fact that
the current system does not serve many people well and is in need of urgent
reform. We are in complete agreement with the analysis at paragraphs 3.5 and
3.6 of the report, in relation to the woeful effects of LASPO on legal aid and
the fact that the county courts are starved of resources and court
administration is on its knees thanks to court closures and HMCTS cuts. Many
people are denied access to justice because their problem is out of scope of
legal aid or because they are financially ineligible for legal aid, or because
they live in an advice desert with no housing law solicitor for many miles. We
would support many of the recommendations in Chapter 3, although we reject
the assumption that digital methods are capable of eliciting the background to
a case in the way that face-to-face contact does, and we are concerned that the
report appears to place no value on the relationship of trust and confidentiality
that people have with a lawyer or adviser. Although the report allows for a
multiplicity of channels by way of entry to the HDS, the clear imperative is
towards digital conduct, which in our experience is self-evidently not
appropriate to the circumstances in which a person’s home is at stake or a
person finds him/herself homeless.

44. We would advocate substantial changes which would address the current
problems of access to justice within the present court system. Among the
reforms we would suggest are the following:

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