Repairs and Investment Panel - 25 November 2025

Location: North Tyneside Council offices, Quadrant, Cobalt Business Park

Attendees

Tenant members – Pamela, Heather, Christine, Evelyn, Ann, John (Guest)

Lee Nesbitt - Asset Intelligence and Logistics Manager, Tony Ormston - Service Delivery Manager Repairs & Maintenance, David Foster – Head of Property Services, Beaudene Kilty – Programme Delivery Manager, Angela Melvin – Housing Engagement Manager

Apologies 

Tenant members - Kim R, Kim S, Dawn, Irene

1. Notes of the last meeting and action log 

Notes of the last meeting were agreed. 

One part of the action log lists topics for future discussion, one of which was the empty homes process.  Several tenants from our panels took part in a focus day last week to learn more about the process from start to finish.  Those tenants from this panel who attended commented that it had been very interesting and really good to understand the work that goes into it.  

Panel members can put forward topics for future discussion at any point, please let AM know.  A suggestion was made to look at the repairs process.

2. Our approach to disrepair claims 

A briefing note on disrepair claims had been shared with the panel in advance. 

‘Disrepair’ is where a rented property is not well maintained and is in a dilapidated condition.  We generally would not consider disrepair as an issue for our homes.  Tenants should always notify their housing provider of any defect and, if the necessary repairs are not carried out, the tenant can go through a legal disrepair process.

The Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (Housing Disrepair) outlines the protocol.   Once a disrepair claim is put in, the housing provider’s lawyers must then deal with tenant’s lawyers.

After a joint survey by both the provider’s surveyor and one acting on behalf of the legal company, a schedule of works is produced and this becomes a legal document.  The provider would be required to do the work within a reasonable timescale and there will be conversations between the lawyers for both parties regarding compensation and redress. 

We are seeing a lot of canvassing of tenants, from ‘no win/no fee’ legal firms promising large cash settlements for tenants.  Their approach is to push leaflets through doors and do cold calling to sign tenants up, citing any minor problem as ‘disrepair’.  Once the tenant signs an agreement with them, it becomes a legal process.  However, many of the companies doing this are not being open with the tenants with regard to the small print – that if the tenant doesn’t win the case, they could personally be liable for the council’s legal fees, which can be thousands of pounds for each case.   

The council will always complete required repairs, regardless of the legal case, however once it becomes a legal case, this delays the repairs being done as we then need to deal with the tenant’s legal firm and this can take time.   

In terms of compensation, the tenant may be awarded £200, and then their legal firm will take a percentage of that, so they may end up with around £150.  The firm then charges the council all their legal costs, which can be around £4,000-6,000.

We find it is rare for there to be an outstanding repair in the disrepair cases that have been filed against us.  The law currently allows tenants to bring a disrepair claim even if they have not notified the provider of a problem previously.  

We also have our own complaints process, backed by a compensation scheme and the Housing Ombudsman guidance.  Their compensation scheme is very similar to what tenants are receiving in these cases.  

Since 2023, the council has paid over £600,000 in legal fees for disrepair claims.  This doesn’t include the cost of the repair, or the compensation we would have paid to the tenant ourselves if our complaints team find that compensation is due.  This is money that our tenants have paid via their rent and which is now going to claims firms who are not acting in the tenant’s interests, rather than being invested in our homes and to support our tenants.

Within the disrepair protocol, there is ‘alternative dispute resolution’ (ADR), which is mediation between a tenant and landlord.  If a landlord has not provided a service to the tenant, the legislation expects there to be a mediation as a first stage to find a resolution.  The ‘letter of claim’ is the stage after that and it is then a formal disrepair claim.

The no win/no fee companies are ignoring the ADR stage and jumping ahead to the letter of claim.  To combat this, after conversations with the courts, we have changed our approach.  Now, when we receive a letter of claim, the courts have agreed that we can we go back to the ADR stage and try and resolve the issue ourselves direct with the tenant.    

The team have produced an ADR process, so when we get the letter of claim, we will write to the solicitor to pause the claim to give us an opportunity to engage with the tenant and go down the ADR route.  Often, the tenant hasn’t reported the repair to us previously so we will have a conversation with the tenant about the work needed and about compensation if applicable.  

Our aim is to stop the no win/no fee companies targeting our tenants and hope that our firm response to the initial claim by taking it back a step to ADR will deter them.  We are concerned that tenants who may be vulnerable could be exploited by unscrupulous claims firms.

We propose that when we receive the letter of claim, we will follow this process:

• Raise a formal complaint as per our formal complaints procedure
• Our complaints team will write to the tenant to acknowledge it 
• We will arrange a property survey within a few days to inspect the works required, and get the work booked in as quickly as practicably possible.
• We have 10 days after the survey to write to the tenant with the works identified and estimated timescales
• Once that’s done, we will then go back to the no win no fee and say it is done and there is no case

We know that the claims firms often tell tenants ‘don’t let the council in’, or ‘don’t let them do the work’.  However, under the terms of the Tenancy Agreement, tenants must give us reasonable access to the property. 

Considering how to make this work, we are very keen to make sure our tenants are empowered with information that these claims firms are not operating in the interest of tenants and what they should instead do around: 

• How to report repairs, to give us a chance to put things right quickly
• That they can use our internal complaints process, managed by our dedicated complaints team
• The role of the Housing Ombudsman
• The implications of going down the legal route for disrepair and the necessity of being very clear on what they are signing up to

The panel agreed with this.  They then considered the current methods for us to communicate with tenants:

• We have recently updated safety information on our website (this panel reviewed the draft of this)
• Social media
• Council magazine
• All our tenant panels
• Routine letters
• Colleagues in the housing service who have daily contact with tenants
• Our ‘See it, report it’ process, for colleagues to report any issues they spot when visiting a tenant for any reason

The panel were asked what we may be missing and suggested: 

• Could send a story to the local press to highlight the issue
• Pop-up information session in libraries (we do have our tenant drop-ins, the next round of which is taking place over the next two weeks; the Repairs team will be represented) 
• Posters for noticeboards in libraries and community centres 

Given the financial pressures many people are currently facing, we do appreciate that tenants may view a disrepair claim as an opportunity.  This is a national issue for social housing providers, with tens of millions of pounds per year being directed away from housing services to legal firms.  There is talk of the government capping some of this activity, however there is nothing in place at the moment.  

The team is keen to emphasise that if we get things wrong, we want to be able to put them right and if we are at fault, we do pay compensation in line with the Housing Ombudsman guidance.  We have received around 200 disrepair claim cases, however none of these were relating to a repair that had been reported previously. 

A panel member raised that there can be an issue with tenants not bothering to report repairs because they think nothing will be done, which is not the case.   We need to let tenants know that we do take action. 

Another member asked if recent legislation is making people more aware of things that they could complain about, which DF agreed was likely to be the case. 

Having researched how the claims firms are canvassing, they are also putting videos out on social media, which will pop up onto people’s feeds.  LN showed an example of a video which offered up to £10,000 in compensation for fairly minor issues – this amount would not be awarded, so is very misleading to tenants and raising false expectations.   

The panel were asked whether they felt a video produced by us, featuring a tenant, would be effective in getting our message across, the panel agreed that it would.  The video could be showed in our buildings which have TV screens too.

A panel member asked if we could have leaflets that could be handed out at visits to tenant homes, LN replied that was possible.  Another suggestion was to include information in routine letters, and highlight how much money is being spent on these claims. 

The communications team will compile a plan around this issue, to include regular messages about allowing the council access to homes, about reporting repairs as soon as an issue is spotted, and awareness of the claims companies’ approach.  For the video, we will seek a tenant volunteer, or a member of staff who is also a tenant, to be involved.  

The panel agreed that it had been helpful to understand this issue and how we can mitigate its impact.  An update will be provided at the next panel meeting.

3. Performance and complaints update

The performance scorecard and regular complaints report had been shared with the panel ahead of the meeting.

a) Performance scorecard

At the September meeting, members agreed to increase some of our targets and these are reflected in the scorecard.  A panel member commented that it was good to see the high number of targets being achieved.  Many are being met or exceeded, with a positive picture overall:

• All safety checks are at 100% 
• Electrical safety checks, which are now required every five years rather than 10, are currently at 75%.  We need to be at 100% by the end of May 2026 
• Stock condition surveys – 70.7% have had one within the last five years and we are aiming for 100% by the end of March 2027.
• Repairs times are above target and we will continue to monitor these over winter
• Appointments made and kept are at 96.8% for the year to date, against a target of 96.1%

b) Complaints report

Stage 1 complaints compared to the same time last year have gone up by 17.   Stage 2 complaints, which can now be made without requiring a reason, have significantly increased – from 18 last year to 31 this year.  

However, the national picture is that providers are seeing complaints going up by 40-50%, so the situation for us is more positive and we encourage tenants to let us know if something isn’t right.  Our view is that complaints are opportunities to learn.  

4. Any Other Business

A question was asked around two-person visits, which can be required in some instances for safety reasons.   DF explained that in some instances we do need to send two members of staff, this wouldn’t necessarily just be housing teams, it could also be our adult social care or children’s teams.   Those staff attending wouldn’t be aware of the reason that it was a two-person visit and our Community Protection team will have written to the resident previously to explain that visits will be made by two staff at a time and the reason for that.  They will keep the situation under view. 

Another tenant wanted to praise the apprentices working within the repairs team, for their politeness and attitude to work.  DF expressed his thanks and appreciated the positive feedback, our current group of apprentices are doing very well.