Private landlord-tenant mediation

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The context

Northern Ireland’s PRS has grown rapidly in recent years. Unlike in Scotland, where the social sector remains larger than the PRS in all but two Council areas, its two rented sectors are now roughly equal in size. There has been an accompanying sharp rise in households becoming homeless from privately rented housing through the period.

Traditionally, Housing Rights has provided services for people experiencing housing problems - not for their housing providers. But staff delivering the tenant helpline service found private landlords also needed advice and assistance: help which can, in turn, benefit tenants. Housing Rights opened its landlord helpline in 2017. This meant it was well placed to set up a private landlord-tenant mediation service, with a clear purpose of preventing homelessness from the PRS, in 2020.

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The intervention

Housing Rights received government funding to pilot its PRS mediation service, which launched a few months before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It set up a small team of internal and sessional mediators working to the European code of conduct, offering a free service to tenants, licensees, landlords, agents
and solicitors. As with all mediation, the focus is on improving (and sometimes re-starting) communication, helping people to have difficult conversations where relationships have broken down, teasing out the issues, and seeking a resolution acceptable to both parties.

The mediation service accepts self-referrals and referrals from other agencies, with many arriving online or via Housing Rights’ landlord and tenant helplines. Only registered landlords and agencies can use the service, and mediators don’t take on deposit disputes, so as not to duplicate the work of Alternative Dispute Resolution services. Tenancies must still be live, and both parties must give consent to participate, and be able for the mediation process.

Mediators first check eligibility and suitability for mediation, contacting both parties separately to gather information about the dispute and willingness to proceed. Once consent is received, a mediation session is arranged (largely online during the pandemic). The session’s aim is to reach an appropriate agreement, which is emailed to both parties for confirmation. The service follows up one and three months after cases are closed, to gather feedback and identify if issues leading to the mediation remain resolved or not.

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The outcome

In the last 18 months, the service received 358 referrals, steadily increasing as the service becomes better known. 72% of referrals came from tenants. Of eligible referrals, just over 40% went on to take part in mediation. Of just under 100 mediation sessions attended, 85 positive agreements were reached (88% of mediations). This indicates whilst many parties referred don’t end up using mediation, those who do are highly likely to reach a positive resolution. Tenants and landlords who either don’t go onto mediation, or don’t reach agreement, are signposted to Housing Rights advice services.

The main referral reasons include repair disputes, arrears, antisocial behaviour, threatened evictions and unprotected deposits. So whilst it’s not possible to make a clear causal link between positive resolutions to landlord/tenant issues and prevention of homelessness, it’s clear mediators focus on all the main drivers of tenancy failure, using non-adversarial and restorative techniques.

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Key insights

• whilst mediation is common, mediation in the PRS is not – and it takes a specialised focus
• a tenant-focused organisation can be well-placed to offer services for landlords which ultimately benefit tenants and the wider rented sector
• mediation services take time to gain traction and confidence, but can be highly successful

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Find out more…

Laura Coulter, Mediation Practice Manager, Housing Rights Northern Ireland
laura.coulter@housingrights.org.uk