27 February 2026
Cropping the claims harvesters
Lisa Birchall
NFA Head of Policy
Croc eye: Unsplash/David Clode
When a Midlands council tenant answered a knock on his door to a man wearing the distinctive brand colours of his landlord, he was not surprised. The frontline housing officers who manage his home and neighbourhood on behalf of his local authority keep up a highly visible presence among their customers.
He was, however, baffled when this visitor explained he was investigating repairs that needed doing at the property. The resident hadn’t contacted the council and had no complaints. But still, assuming that his caller was indeed a housing employee, he allowed an inspection. He was then persuaded to sign a form which he assumed was a simple acknowledgement that an inspection had been done.
The form was, however, an agreement with a claims harvesting company which had targeted him and his neighbours. He only realised this when had a further baffling call from his landlord, asking him about the legal disrepair claim they had received.
Assured that he had no complaints, his landlord told the claims company they would take no further action. And then he received a demand for cash because he had, the claims company said, breached their ‘terms and conditions’ and now they wanted £1,100 for their ‘services’.
Stories like these are becoming all too common in the social housing sector. It’s clear from the stories that NFA members tell us that unscrupulous claims companies have come to view recent disrepair regulations as a rich and easy income stream.
Ambulance-chasing claims are clogging up systems that should be clear, speedy and straightforward for tenants who genuinely need recourse to the courts
Who suffers?
This kind of malpractice doesn’t just target ‘victimless’ public funds and housing accounts. As our opening story shows, the claims harvesters and the solicitors who work with them are not above attempting to take money from the tenants themselves – hardly likely to have money to spare.
Our members also suspect that some of these operators may be deliberately targeting those they think are likely to be more vulnerable, such as obviously disabled tenants or those unable to read well or with poor mental health. Other dubious tactics include teams descending on neighbourhoods, mimicking local authority branding in their leaflets or social media publicity. One company masqueraded online as the council’s local complaints group and another even used the crown logo of gov.uk in its literature.
And the bills unwary tenants can be left with are eye-watering. In one spurious case challenged by the landlord, a tenant faced a court demand for costs and compensation to her local council of £5,000. The fine print in an apparent ‘no-win, no fee’ agreement left her without legal protection when her solicitors refused to pay.
Meanwhile, such ambulance-chasing claims are clogging up systems that should be clear, speedy and straightforward for tenants who genuinely need recourse to the courts to force irresponsible landlords into action.
The NFA and others in the social housing sector have been taking all these stories to MHCLG and the Ministry of Justice for the last two years.
The Ministries’ joint consultation on the impact of malpractice in disrepair claims has just closed, and the sector now awaits their proposals for better protection for tenants. Our consultation submission drew on the data we gathered back in 2024 with our partners at the LGA and ARCH, when the problem had already become too big to ignore in the local authority sector.
Some of claims will be genuine and necessary – but we know malpractice around disrepair claims is on the rise.
What does the evidence tell us?
Data from more than 30 councils and ALMOs showed that legal action begun on disrepair cases more than quadrupled between 2019 and 2023; and of 15 organisations able to disaggregate the cost of handling disrepair cases, this had risen from £2.7m in 2019/20 to £10.9m in 2023/24. Some of these claims will, of course, have been genuine and necessary – but anecdotally, the sector knows malpractice around disrepair claims is on the rise.
It’s clear that many of these claims aim to exploit the chronic financial pressures on landlords and councils. Increasingly they have to weigh up whether to risk the inevitable cost – both in hard cash, and in terms of precious staff time and organisational resources – of challenging even the most obviously suspicious claim, or whether to opt for the relatively cheaper, quicker solution of settlement. The most galling aspect of all this is that we know tenants see very little of any compensation won through these companies. They sell claims onto solicitors whose legal costs very often swallow much of whatever is left and, at the human level, the personal repercussions of the way this industry operates can be devastating.
- One tenant who tried to cancel her claim in the early stages was threatened with a £4,600 cancellation fee.
- In another case, after the council won, the judge awarded £8,000 in costs against the tenant — not the solicitor. Council officers visited and found she’d been cold-called and pressured into making a claim she never really wanted. The solicitor then told her it was the council’s fault and suggested she offer to pay it back at £1 a week.
- The costs pursued by solicitors are frequently eye-watering and bear little relationship to the actual work done; our members have seen cases with minimal activity and only a few months’ history being billed at £10,000.
- Some solicitors are deliberately inflating the estimated cost of repairs to nudge cases just over the £1,000 threshold that determines when a formal disrepair claim becomes more profitable.
What must change
There’s broad agreement that the current regulatory system is slow, fragmented and ineffective — dealing with problems case by case rather than fixing the underlying issues. Key reforms are vital. We need:
- Caps on legal fees and on how much claims companies can take from compensation payouts – similar to the rules already in place for personal injury claims.
- A rise in the £1,000 repairs threshold set in 1991 – so low now that it invites exploitation.
- A clear process that allows landlords a proper chance to put disrepair right before a case can go to court.
- Legal aid for housing condition claims so tenants are less likely to fall prey to claims harvesting practices.
- Faster, tougher regulation of those involved in claims harvesting with bigger fines and quicker removal of bad actors.
- Greater use of the Housing Ombudsman as a first port of call, long before cases go to court.
Whatever happens next, it is clear that a set of regulations and legislation that was designed to protect tenants’ rights is being hijacked to create an income stream for the unscrupulous. These are no longer isolated cases – this is an industry.
We look forward to working with government to put in place measures that are strong enough to dismantle it.
Lisa joined the NFA in 2017 and is widely respected in the housing sector as a leading expert on local authority housing policy and practice.