The Ministry of Justice has confirmed a two-year delay to the introduction of fixed recoverable costs (FRC) in housing cases.
A spokesperson said this week the Ministry wanted to align its reforms with wider reforms in the housing sector. The government is bringing forward a Social Housing Regulation Bill, which would increase the powers of the Housing Ombudsman.
The extension of FRCs to other civil cases worth up to £100,000 will continue as planned despite previous delays—the timetable has already been shuffled from October 2022 to April 2023 and then to October 2023.
Law Society president Lubna Shuja welcomed the reprieve for housing, but urged the government ‘to consider scrapping the implementation of FRCs in housing cases entirely. The complexity and unique nature of housing cases makes them unsuitable for the application of FRCs’.
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