Compensation Claim

Understanding Your Compensation Claim

When evaluating your compensation claim, our specialised solicitors consider various vital factors. Mainly, we assess how much stress and inconvenience you've endured due to disrepair. Having to relocate or if your personal belongings have been damaged due to neglect are also significant factors in our evaluation. Understanding the impact of these disrepairs on your life is crucial to estimating the compensation you deserve.

Determining Factors for Your Compensation Claim

Key questions that we explore during a housing disrepair claim include:

For how long have you been enduring the consequences of disrepair?
Have you been compelled to move into another property due to disrepair?
Have there been damages to your personal belongings because of the disrepair?
What is the extent of damage to the property?
Has any health complications or injury been caused due to disrepair?

We advise our clients to maintain photos and retain receipts of damaged items or relevant evidence portraying the property's distressed state. Evidence of any health issues due to the disrepair, documented through GP or hospital records, can also significantly strengthen your claim.

Building a Robust Case

Keeping a thorough record of all communications with your landlord regarding the disrepair can significantly fortify your case. Emails, texts, diary entries, or other documents that showcase exchanges with your landlord about the disrepair are precious.

These documents should chronicle the initial notification of disrepair to confirmation of visits by your council or housing association landlord (or the landlord's contractors) to investigate, repair, or maintain your property.

Using these records, we can determine whether your landlord acted within a reasonable period and if their responses were adequate. It's not uncommon for landlords to undertake substandard repairs that don't resolve your problems adequately.

How do we then quantify your compensation?

Compensation is typically calculated as a percentage of your tenancy's rent. Factors such as the seriousness of the disrepair and the duration you've been living with these issues will influence the final calculation. Any assistance from Housing Benefits, Universal Credit, or a third party for the rent won't affect your claim. The rent acts as a calculation tool for the estimation of the compensation.

The compensation usually falls between 20% and 50% of the annual rent paid for your home. However, in some instances, it may be higher depending on the severity of the scenario.

For instance, if your monthly rent amounts to £600, you pay £7,200 as annual rent. If your compensation was determined to be 25%, you would receive £1,800 for each year you had been affected by the disrepair. If the issue persisted for 3 years, your compensation would be 3 x £1,800, which is £5,400.
Our priority is to ensure that you receive what is rightfully yours, and our team is dedicated to achieving that goal.