Hackney Council ordered to pay £43,500 compensation to its longsuffering lessee

Hackney Council has been ordered to pay a lessee £43,500 compensation and her legal costs following years of dampness and disrepair at her maisonette. The Council has also had to apologise to the Court for failing to comply with a Court order to carry out the works.

The Court orders conclude a longstanding dispute which arose when the Council failed to repair the bowing front wall of the building which was left with wooden supports around the windows to prevent collapse.

The lessee’s solicitors, Dowse & Co., first wrote to the Council on 23.4.04 asking for its proposals for repair. Surveyors and structural engineers were appointed who identified the structural works required and agreed a Specification of Works in February 2005. But despite this no works were done. In October 2005 steel acrow props were put in the bedroom to prevent its ceiling collapsing from dampness.

Court proceedings were commenced in October 2005 and the Council defended the case right up until the day of the trial on 15 March 2007. At Court the Council agreed to pay £11,000 compensation, all the legal costs and to carry out all the agreed repairs, at its own expense, by August 2007.

But the Council failed to commence any repairs and so the Court ordered it to complete the work before February 2008 and to pay additional compensation. However by June 2008 structural engineers reported that, although the front wall of the building had by then been rebuilt, extensive repair work still remained incomplete.

The case finally concluded at a Court hearing in July 2009 when the Council had to apologise to the Court that it had been, and still remained, in breach of the Court’s order. The Council agreed to pay the lessee a further sum of £32,500 compensation and her legal costs. Finally in August 2009 the surveyor certified that the all repairs had finally been done and the compensation has now been paid..

The lessee said “ All I ever wanted was for the repairs to be done. I was caused a lot of anxiety and upset by the way the Council treated me and by its delays. And I lost so much money because the maisonette couldn’t be occupied until the work was finished.”

Bill Parry-Davies of Dowse & Co. said “ Landlords have legal duties to repair the structure of its tenants' and lessees' homes. In default the Council had to compensate for all the lessee's distress and her losses, all the legal costs and do all the building works. It could have saved the public over £100,00 by getting on with the repairs when first asked in 2004. It’s a scandalous waste of money which could have been spent on good causes instead.”