The legal landscape for social landlords and housing providers is constantly evolving, bringing new challenges across development, workforce management and day‑to‑day operations.
This series helps you get to know our Social Housing team — their expertise, the challenges they help clients navigate, and the role they play in supporting housing providers across the South West.
In our first edition, we hear from three of our legal advisors:
- Carrianne Matta, Associate within the Social Housing Sector and part of our Employment Team
- Kate Westlake, Partner within the Social Housing Sector and part of our Real Estate Team
- Jim Gorrod, Partner within the Social Housing Sector, and Head of our Construction Team
What does your role involve when supporting social landlords and housing providers?
Carrianne Matta, Employment Associate: I provide advice on how to navigate employment issues such as employment tribunal claims, contracts, disciplinary matters, grievances etc, to help organisations reduce legal risks and resolve disputes effectively.
Kate Westlake, Real Estate Partner: As a partner in the social housing team, I am heavily involved in developing the team and ensuring our clients are happy and receiving an excellent client service. Day to day I deal with complex deals our providers might be working on to secure affordable housing schemes which can range from buying affordable units from developers to securing land for providers to develop themselves. I also help with raising finance against sites to generate more income to invest back into affordable housing. Having worked in the sector for many years I have built up sector specific social housing experience of the nuances around social housing and have had some great opportunities to work in house with clients. This experiences helps me support providers in maximising the potential value for the site – that could be ensuring that the section 106 agreement for the scheme is in a form which will allow open market value when raising finance in the future, ensuring CIL reliefs for social housing have been claimed correctly to minimise CIL liability or claiming the correct stamp duty land tax relief where grant funding is in place.
Jim Gorrod, Construction Partner: I lead the construction team at Stephens Scown. A large part of my role involves working with Social Housing providers to advise them on the drafting of development agreements, build contracts and other construction related issues. We also help with avoidance or resolution of disputes, if and when they arise. It helps to understand the issues and nuances that affect social housing providers with this type of work as this often helps us reach pragmatic solutions to problems.
What drew you to specialise in your area of law, particularly within the social housing sector?
Carrianne: It is quite simple, I am a people person and employment law focuses on exactly that, the people that bring organisations to life. Therefore, advising and assisting individuals and organisations, who are facing challenges in their employment is both rewarding and interesting in equal measure.
Kate: Being able to make a positive impact, especially on the communities we are part of and working with the clients I am able to work with in the social housing sector. The majority of my clients tend to be repeat clients which means I have built up close relationships with many of them and am seen as an extension of their team which is one of the best parts of my role.
Jim: I have always worked for law firms that specialise in social housing and public sector work. The work is interesting and engaging and fits with my desire to make a positive difference to the wider community.
What is one emerging issue or trend that social housing providers should be preparing for?
Carrianne: With the change in Government, Labour has brought in a new Employment Rights Act which comes into effect in various stages over the next year or two. Therefore, organisations are having to take a number of proactive steps to ensure it is prepared for the employment law changes on the horizon. It is an exciting time, but employers need to be taking steps now. Useful article here on those steps to get ready.
Kate: Awaab’s Law was introduced the latter part of last year which was put in place to essentially ensure that social landlords adequately address hazardous conditions in their homes. There are strict timelines which need to be met when investigating certain hazards. A key point for some providers will be ensuring that when they are buying properties from a developer the timescales for remedying defects etc match those timescales in the regulations and that providers can rectify issues and claim the costs back from the developer where they do not act quickly. You can find out more about the regulations here
Jim: The Building Safety Act has introduced a once-in-a-generation legislative change that should mean that newly built housing is safe and fit for purpose. We are working closely with our social housing clients to ensure that they understand the requirements of the BSA, in particular how the new Building Regulations compliance requirements will impact the design and construction of new developments.
What do you find most rewarding about supporting organisations that provide housing and community services?
Carrianne: As above, employment law is a very human-centred practice area which is why I decided to specialise in this area. Therefore, supporting organisations that are delivering essential services and housing to their communities, fits neatly with that. Ethical workplace practices are becoming increasingly important to organisations, but perhaps more so within this sector.
Kate: I love that we help be part of the team providing homes for families and creating communities, particularly, helping people get on to the property ladder – working with organisations that provide housing and community services is really rewarding.
Jim: It is not always easy, as a lawyer, to make a positive impact on the community. Working with clients that are providing a valuable community service and helping them to achieve their aim is one way that we can feel we are making that difference.
How do your teams collaborate to support clients on complex or multi‑disciplinary issues?
Carrianne: Although a time of challenge, Covid challenged organisations to adapt and work in a much more agile way and therefore with the various IT platforms, Teams, emails etc it is great to be able to work seamlessly with all the different teams throughout Stephens Scown, in all of our regional offices to ensure we provide the best support, technical expertise and service to our clients when working on larger projects. Team work is essential and communication is key to providing the full project support to our clients.
Kate: We work closely between real estate teams, from the sales / disposal team to the acquisition team alongside the charging team to ensure that we acquire land which can be used for securing development of affordable properties, can be disposed of, usually be leases to those qualifying for affordable properties and that can be financed against at the end to raise funds to be reinvested into more social housing and the community. Likewise, we collaborate and work closely with all our teams specialising in social housing, including to name just a few, our construction team advising on JCT contracts to parent company guarantees, our litigation colleagues advising on tenancy or site issues and our planning colleagues to put in place section 106 agreements or help with securing planning for schemes. This ensures that providers have a seamless joined up experience with us.
Jim: Our construction team work closely with colleagues in our other specialist teams to provide a joined up collaborative approach for our clients. We are used to providing advice on issues that require input on many different areas of law, and I find it rewarding to be able to work as part of a wider team to provide tailored advice.
This article was jointly written by:
Carrianne Matta, Associate within the Social Housing Sector and part of our Employment Team.
Kate Westlake, Partner within the Social Housing Sector and part of our Real Estate Team.
Jim Gorrod, Partner within the Social Housing Sector, and Head of our Construction Team.
If you require any assistance regarding any topic that this article has mentioned then please contact us on 03454 505 558.