Have you suffered a personal injury due to Housing Disrepair?

If you have suffered personal injury due to the condition of your Local Authority Housing, you could be entitled to compensation.

Landlord’s duty of care

All landlords owe a duty of care to their tenants.  This encompasses a duty to provide safe accommodation for them and minimise the risks and hazards they are exposed to while living in their rental property.

Landlords will be in breach of this duty when they neglect repairs, often giving rise to a Housing Disrepair claim. Where the landlord’s breach of duty has caused an injury or illness, you may also be eligible to make an attached claim for personal injury.

In relation to a claim for injury or illness, it is important to remember that although there is a duty to provide safe accommodation, this duty falls short of requiring a landlord to inspect a premises.  However, you may have a positive claim if we can prove that a landlord was aware of any risks and hazards and failed to take appropriate action.

To succeed in a claim for personal injuries, it will be necessary to evidence the state of the disrepair and your attempts to make your landlord aware of the need to rectify these concerns.  Examples of evidence in support of a personal injury claim can include photographs illustrating the defect, copies of correspondence or text messages to your landlord reporting the defect, or statements from family or friends who may have witnessed the accident, disrepair or reporting of the same could also be helpful.

Causation

As well as proving the elements set out above, it is important to establish a clear link between the injury you have sustained and the disrepair.  Evidence in the form of medical records, will be vital in establishing this link between the landlord’s negligence and the injury.  If upon careful assessment of your enquiry, your claim is something we can assist you with, we will request and review your medical records on your behalf.  If these records remain supportive of your case, we will be able to continue with your claim.

It is important to note that injuries can be short term and long term.  This means that you could claim for a physical injury caused by a housing defect i.e. broken window, but also a long-term injury/illness e.g. respiratory illness which is directly a result of long-term damp conditions in the property.

Limitation

There are strict limitation periods which apply to personal injury claims that you should be aware of.

In personal injury cases, a Claimant usually has the benefit of a three-year limitation period.  This period of three years starts from the date of the accident, or the date which the Claimant acquired knowledge relevant to their claim which should have prompted the Claimant to make further reasonable enquiries.

If the proposed Claimant is under the age of 18, the three-year limitation period will begin after the Claimant’s eighteenth birthday.  The proposed Claimant can therefore start a formal claim for personal injury up until his twenty-first birthday.  If the proposed Claimant’s claim settles before his/her eighteenth birthday, as the Claimant will still be a child, no settlement will be valid without the Court’s approval.

It will not be possible to bring a claim for personal injury once the limitation period has expired without the discretion of the Court, which is only given in very exceptional circumstances.

Determining whether you have acquired the appropriate relevant knowledge can be very difficult to establish and therefore, it is important you contact a solicitor and make them aware as soon as possible if you wish to pursue a claim for personal injury.  Calculating the amount of time you have to bring a claim is not easy, which is why our friendly legal team are readily available to assist you in making this process easier.

Get legal advice about a Housing Disrepair Personal Injury claim

If we are able to assist you with a personal injury claim as a result of housing disrepair, then we will offer to act under a No Win No Fee Agreement (Conditional Fee Agreement or CFA).  Further details of the funding agreement can be obtained from a member of our specialist team during your initial call.

Just contact the team at any one of our six branches in Wakefield, Dewsbury, Horsforth, Selby, Penistone or Wetherby, and they will guide you further.