Pabla & Pabla at the Housing Conditions Conference 2026

A bell rings loudly across a brightly lit Midland Hotel conference suite, and well-dressed delegates hastily bring their conversations to a close. Solicitors, barristers, academics, and more shuffle into the conference theatre. It is Thursday 16^th April, and the headline talk of the Legal Futures Housing Conditions Conference 2026 is about to begin.

Why have a Housing Conditions Conference in the first place?

Without anyone realising, a perfect storm has been quietly brewing for years. We now find ourselves in 2026, with the storm raging and Housing Disrepair claims exploding in popularity. The claimant demand is enormous, and law firms are frantically setting up new departments to meet the sheer scale of requests for legal representation.

Even the government have taken notice and are actively calling for evidence on these new claims. Once you get into the detail, you can see that Housing Disrepair claims could be on the cusp of entirely reshaping the UK’s housing sector and legal landscape. This begs the question – how has this happened so quickly?

The perfect storm stems from a few key elements. Firstly, claimant law firms have been actively seeking new practice areas following the loss of Road Traffic Accident claims profitability post-Civil Liabilities Act 2018. Secondly, the nation’s housing is in a state of remarkable crisis, with many public and private tenants finding themselves living with disrepair. Thirdly, tenant rights have been recently strengthened by the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 and Awaab’s Law. This will likely increase further with the Renters’ Rights Act coming into effect on May 1^st. Finally, tenants have increasingly few viable options for getting their disrepair addressed. The Housing Ombudsman takes an extraordinarily long time to resolve issues, and Legal Aid has decline significantly since 2012.

In short, more tenants than ever before find themselves living in disrepair. Simultaneously, those same tenants find themselves with more legal rights than ever before. The most viable remaining option for them to have their housing problems addressed is to seek out private solicitors, who are more than willing to represent them on a no win, no fee basis. This has all contributed to a rapidly evolving legal landscape that grows larger and larger every year. This, frankly, necessitates a conference.

The fourth annual Housing Conditions Conference

The Midland Hotel pulses with activity. Delegates from across the legal world listen keenly to presentations and talks on this developing field of law. Neil Rose, Editor of Legal Futures, expertly comperes throughout the course of the day.

Particular standout sessions included a talk by Professor Rishabh Prasad, Chief Medical Officer at Genetix, who offered his expert insight on damp and mould, and their relevance in a post-Awaab’s Law world of Personal Injury. John Hoarey, Interim Head of Dispute Resolution at the Housing Ombudsman, also delivered a humorous address on the rapid growth of their role in the sector, and how their internal processes work. Particular interest was afforded to David Nix and Matthew Leeming of the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority, who spoke at length about the extra focus they are now organisationally affording to the sector – especially around solicitor’s direct marketing and high-volume claims.

As is also common at legal conferences, delegates voraciously consumed complementary teas and coffees between sessions. The legal world is small, so the floor buzzed with smiles and handshakes shared between familiar faces. The energy is palpably high.

Headline talk: The future of Housing Disrepair claims

At 15:25, the rings and delegates file back into the theatre for the final talk of the day. Several panellists have taken to the stage and are giving their notes a final check. Sat beside Neil Rose are Jacob Poole and Christian Potter of Pabla & Pabla Solicitors, Ellie Staniforth of Bevan Brittan, Julia Cooper and of the Claims Management Association, and Julie Twist of Diversify Law. Across the hall, delegates leaf through print copies of a whitepaper; The Unfortunate Truth About Housing Disrepair.

The report was published in November of last year after months of research and writing by Jacob Poole. Despite the broad awareness across the legal sector that Housing Disrepair claims are increasing in volume – no hard data could substantiate exactly how much they were increasing by.

Jacob sought to change this, and submit FOIA requests to every single Local Authority and Housing Association in the country, asking them four key questions:

Year by year, how many Housing Disrepair claims have you received?
Year by year, how much did the council pay in legal costs related to these claims?
Year by year, how much did the council pay on maintenance costs on their social housing stock?
Do you have any further comments?

After a short introduction by Neil Rose, Jacob takes to the stage to introduce the dataset and some of the more significant findings from the whitepaper. Most notably, this included the definitive figure that the number of Housing Disrepair claims received by councils have risen 392% in the last 5 years. Jacob also explained that despite councils and housing associations seeing a 428% increase in their legal costs in the last five years, the maintenance costs for their properties have only increased by 55%.

The picture Jacob paints for the conference is a stark one – tenants are being left in increasingly dire straits, and worsening states of Housing Disrepair. They have few options for legal recourse, with Legal Aid declining drastically and the Housing Ombudsman incapable of rising to the scale of the challenge. Private solicitors, it seems, are plugging the gap.

A panel discussion on Housing Disrepair claims

Neil Rose returns to the podium and thanks Jacob for sharing his research with the conference. Applause rumbles across the theatre and the panel discussion begins. Neil fields questions across the panel, offering the assembled experts a chance to share their insight on the wider context in which the claims take place.

Primarily, the government’s call for evidence and recent features by the BBC have equally highlighted the wider scrutiny facing law firms practicing in Housing Disrepair claims. Earlier in the day, representatives from the SRA had vocally expressed their concern about the ongoing, rapid growth in claim volume. Ellie Staniforth, who has frequently acted as a representative for landlords in housing matters, proposed that austerity measures since 2010 have left many councils simply unable to finance repairs to properties.

Neil also facilitated a conversation on the juxtaposed arguments surrounding access to justice. A common criticism of law firms practicing in Housing Disrepair claims is that they are only motivated by profit costs. The panel discussed that until legal aid is re-established, civil litigation has been essentially privatised in Housing Disrepair matters. Christian pointed out that restricting costs could well restrict solicitor involvement, thereby leading to serious access to justice problems.

The role of Claims Management Companies was also a topic of significant interest to the wider conference, and was discussed at length. Unscrupulous law firms have, it has been argued, kept themselves at arm’s length from illicit claims marketing by letting Claims Management Companies do the work for them. The panel unilaterally condemned this behaviour and welcomed greater scrutiny by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Altogether, the entire conference was a welcome opportunity to discuss something of enormous interest to our team. To find ourselves in a room of likeminded and similarly enthusiastic legal professionals is always a treat, and we would like to extend an enormous thank you to Legal Futures for hosting the conference yet again. We can’t wait for next year!

Patrick Flynn, Managing Partner at Pabla & Pabla, said;

“An interesting day with some thought-provoking topics for a variety of stakeholders, in a sector where we’ve seen a lot of growth over recent years. It was great to see my colleagues Jacob and Christian delivering their research to the conference, and being at the forefront of the debate that followed. I suspect there will be lots more to observe and discuss on these topics in the future.”

Jacob Poole, Housing Operations Co-ordinator, said;

“Many thanks to Neil, Rebecca, and the rest of the Legal Futures team for putting on such an insightful and important event. I am glad that regardless of the partisan interests of the stakeholders in attendance, the prioritisation of tenant rights remains the absolute priority.

There were many interesting talking points and discussions, including the functionality of Awaab’s Law and the SRA’s involvement in regulating bad practice. The whitepaper on rising claims shows the importance of the private legal sector plugging gaps left by the reduction of civil legal aid and the limited capacity of the Housing Ombudsman.

With so many homes still in disrepair, there is far more work to be done to bring the housing stock of this country into adequate condition. It is only by fully transparent dialogue, like this conference, that will allow this to happen.”