Support through mediation for housing organisations

Our experienced mediation solicitors can help you reach a workable outcome and avoid the need for costly and lengthy court proceedings.

The litigation landscape has changed over the last decade, and although mediation is not technically compulsory, the court civil procedure rules and the judiciary strongly encourage parties to seek to settle their disputes through alternative means, such as mediation, at an early stage.

Mediation is a very effective means of resolving disputes: it has a success rate in reaching a binding settlement of around 75-80%. As such, we recommend exploring mediation because as well as saving money, it avoids the disruption of contested court proceedings, as well as potential damage to an organisation’s reputation. In fact, without trying mediation, you may subsequently be criticised by the judge should your case go to court.

Our mediation services

We guide our clients and provide experienced and insightful representation throughout the process of mediation. As part of our deep understanding of the sectors that we serve, we know how damaging internal and external disputes can be in distracting our clients from their key purposes. We have helped our clients to devise solutions in seemingly impossible situations, and we use the strength and depth of our housing sector knowledge to achieve this. Mediation saves management time and money: it is a cost-effective and efficient means to resolve disputes.

We help clients facing serious disputes and manage them in a planned way from the outset, finding alternative and creative solutions to disputes. By using mediation we can help solve disputes such as: 

• public procurement disputes;
• workplace issues to address dysfunctional teams, relationship/performance capability issues, and any situation within a social housing organisations that is impacting on effectiveness;
• disputes between a social housing provider and its tenants/customers;
• serious disputes that disrupt a social housing provider and that may have reputational consequences/risks;
• difficulties with suppliers, contractors and other parties; and
• property disputes, such as between a commercial landlord and tenant, or between adjoining owners. 

We can also provide training in the correct procedures to implement to be best placed to manage problems when they arise. This helps keep your organisation on track and even allows it to benefit from the lessons that flow from managing disputes.

Outcomes we have achieved when representing our clients in mediation include: 

• resolving a dispute for around 15% of the likely costs of continuing the case to trial; and
• resolving a dispute, on behalf of a defendant party, by our client only paying around 13% of the sum claimed.

Provisions within the Housing and Planning Act that remove the need for housing associations (“HAs”) to obtain consent from the Regulator to dispose of social housing (as well as to merge or enter new group structures) come into force on 6 April.

Such freedoms will allow HAs greater flexibility over how they use their assets and, potentially, how they structure their businesses. Our expert panel gathered to discuss the possible opportunities the deregulatory measures offer, together with the likely hurdles. Read the outcome of their discussion here.