UK Landlord Forum / Life

My tenant is suing me for 'disrepair' and personal injury. There is a condensation problem and we have advised about not drying clothes inside and ventilation etc. but the problem persists. The condensation was noticed about 5 months ago, however, I have been extremely busy with work and haven't been able to sort it out yet. This week I organised 3 tradesmen to carry out some repairs but even though we gave the correct notice for access, my tenant has refused access and they are persuing a no win no fee claim against me.
Any advice would be much appreciated.

It's very unusual for someone to be able to get a legal firm to make a personal injury claim on a conditional fee basis unless it's a slam dunk, and one associated with disrepair, particularly one associated with damp.
So is there more to this than you've indicated.

If there's condensation caused by lifestyle, I'd normally suggest just letting the tenant get on with it and be ready to defend yourself in court.
But this sounds a bit odd.

They listed a couple of things that the Agent had spotted, such as 'window coming away from wall' but when we went there with the Agent this appeared to be a mistake due to the representative who attended the inspection not having any building knowledge.
It turned out to be a very simple fix.
This has come about since the Agent suggested a rent rise. Despite making it clear to the tenant that no rise would occur until the repairs were done.
They are now not giving us access to carry out any repairs.

Has anyone had experience with this sort of claim against them?

Have you actually had a letter from a solicitor acting for them? If so,what is the disrepair and personal injury stated? I have never been in such a situation,but I do know that claims for injuries or illness do require evidence,medical records,photos,doctor's statements whatever.Have they got these?

We have had a letter from a company called Angelus Law. They are citing things like the wall by the front door is wet and they claim to have complained about it a couple of years ago, but this is new info to us.

They claim that their asthma has become worse, but we've never heard them complain like this before. I think we can successfully defend ourselves but I wanted to know if anyone had experienced this or has anyone heard of this law firm.
It feels like a calculated attempt to get money out of us.
We have been in touch with the local authority housing dept. and they recommended carrying out any repairs that we find upon our own inspection (carried out with the agent). However, they are now refusing us access to the property to do this.

The issue with any defence will be the 5 months since an issue was reported, that seems to be sufficiently serious to require three different tradespeople.
That the tenant is now not allowing you access to do any work is probably the key point, but your being "busy with work" isn't going to matter if the problem required you to do something to address it.

You've probably got enough evidence to return a letter to the solicitor refuting most of the claims, and it might be enough to persuade them to abandon the case, as 5 month's disrepair with the tenant contributing to the problem by denying you access isn't that big a claim.

But five month's disrepair is going to be compensatable, and the firm will be working for the fees awarded, not the claim itself.
It might be worth seeing what they're prepared to settle for.