Page 156 - Solving Housing Disputes

HDS positively and adapt their own approaches to play a useful role within
it. It may be that as the HDS takes shape, as its staffing acquires more
confidence, as lawyers see its benefits, the exclusion may come to be
reconsidered. It is obvious, however, that to start it with lawyers embedded in
the process will impact adversely on the character that it is intended to have.

21. The concern that government may cherry-pick the proposal, which is not
explicit but I am sure is implicit in the Dissent, is recognised and respected;
it may do so with any innovation. That cannot, however, mean that we can
never seek new solutions, especially one which has the potential to bring
significant benefits to all parties to a housing relationship, including tenants.
Landlords will be able to turn to their own lawyers to guide them in relation
to the HDS process. Government needs to understand this loud and clear:
there is no point even testing it unless there are housing lawyers available and
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willing to do the same for tenants; it will not work. That not only means
that legal aid must be available before, during and after the process, but that -
if there is to be no reliance on successful litigation costs - legal aid must be at
a sustainable rate. It would be absurd to spend what is needed to try the
process out while paying lawyers at a rate that means they have an incentive
to torpedo it. This is not cant but common sense.

22. All that JUSTICE and I have sought is a pilot: it is very hard indeed to see
why that should be resisted, even where there is a genuine belief that the
vulnerable may be not be as well-served as under the current - universally
accepted as inadequate and unfair - system for resolving housing disputes. It
is very difficult indeed to understand why the Dissent should wish to block
even that, but as it does not directly address this, there is nothing that can be
said about it.

will be privileged. These are not minor concerns” (emphasis in Dissent). They would not be minor if
there was any basis for them: panel lawyers will advise a party as in any other case; they are merely
lawyers who (i) will have the necessary experience in housing law, (ii) wish to take part in the process,
and (iii) who may be paid through the HDS process, but not in any sense employed by HDS. It is not
unheard of for one party to fund another’s lawyer; it does not alter the duty the funded lawyer has -
exclusively - to the party they represent.

365 It will most immediately be reflected in the number of appeals.
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