Page 148 - Solving Housing Disputes

IX. CHAIR’S RESPONSE TO DISSENT

1. As a former long-time member of HLPA, I am saddened by the opposition of
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its nominated members to HDS. I do, however, absolutely understand how
people who have struggled to help tenants and the homeless in the only way
available to them are resistant to a proposal that appears to cut them out of a
small part of the process, threatening the economic model by which they
subsist, which is one of subsidising advisory work through higher paid
litigation income. Their considerable dedication to their clients was always
bound to make it difficult for them either to trust any new approach or to
acknowledge that there may be other ways of achieving not merely the same
ends but improved ends, for a much larger body of need.

2. It would not be appropriate, nor is there time, to respond to every proposition
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or opinion in HLPA’s Dissent, Moreover, there is much in it with which I
agree, although I am sorry that HLPA has failed to recognise that the
principles on which they rely are also fundamental to the HDS proposal, e.g..
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fundamental importance of housing to occupiers, broad interpretation of
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vulnerability, fundamental imbalance of power and the need for a viable

338 Recognising that they are representing HLPA’s views, I refer to it here as the HLPA Dissent, or simply
“Dissent”.

339 In particular, I do not propose to respond to the Art.6 discussion which has been addressed in the
main report, or to the criticisms of the Working Party process or on digitalisation, though I would
comment that the Working Party was alive to the difficulties the latter can pose for many, particularly
the vulnerable. While I accept that vulnerability has to be given a wide meaning (Dissent, para.3(b)) it
would be wrong - not to say grossly patronising - to suggest that all or even most tenants would be
“digitally vulnerable” even if they, and homeless persons, are all vulnerable in the broader sense of
vulnerable to their landlords or local authorities.

340 At para.19, the Dissent notes that “[a]lmost all our clients are vulnerable in some way, even if that is
just because they are at risk of losing their home”. Cp. Report, para.2.5: “Moreover, there is an inbuilt
imbalance as, in the majority of cases, resolving a dispute for a landlord or service provider is a business
matter or a professional function while for a tenant it is about their home, an emotional proposition by
which they are constantly surrounded, or in the case of homelessness, the absence of a home”.

341 The Dissent (at para.16) says that “the HDS proposal fails to recognise...that in almost every case
there is a fundamental imbalance of power between the parties in housing disputes”. This fails to
understand that rectifying that imbalance is a central part of the investigative or inquisitorial purpose of
the HDS approach: “It is a proposed model for dispute resolution that would set out to investigate and
explore with the parties all the circumstances and relevant issues in a housing relationship, not confined
by the parties’ initial assumptions as to what the issues are, which can themselves reflect an information
imbalance between them derived from unequal resources. ... The aim is to ensure that all relevant areas
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