Housing solicitors

The Housing Team at Hopkin Murray Beskine has extensive experience. Together we offer a breadth of expertise and client care which is second to none.

We act predominantly for tenants, leaseholders and the homeless but also act for landlords including housing co-operatives. Our objective for whichever side we are representing is to carry out work as quickly as possible and to achieve the best results.

We have led the way in Housing and related Public Law matters and have a number of reported cases.

Our housing team is recommended in both the Legal 500 and the Chambers UK Guide.

In their 2024 edition, Legal 500 describes Hopkin Murray Beskine Solicitors as providing an ‘outstanding service’ to its clients across a wide range of social housing matters. The ‘quality of the members is uniformly extremely high’; Lesley Curtis is a ‘dedicated and tenacious litigator’ and Ann Bevington is ‘knowledgeable, intelligent, dedicated and thorough.’

The practice also has a strong team of juniors, including Rosie Gibbs and Beatrice Patrick.

The Legal 500 guide 2023 says that our specialist team is “unrivalled in terms of concentrated quality” and describes Ann Bevington and Lesley Curtis as “standout individuals within the social housing world” who are “formidable, highly knowledgeable, thorough, dedicated and all round exceptional” and who “go many extra miles for their clients”.

The 2022 Chambers UK Guide says that our solicitors are “exceptionally brilliant” and “do everything they can to get the best outcome”.

What we do

Housing problems:

Possession proceedings/applications for eviction
Claims based on housing disrepair. We can instruct independent surveyors to carry out inspections, compel a landlord to carry out works, and provide representation in claims for damages based on disrepair and related personal injury.
Nuisance, anti-social behaviour and other breaches of tenancy obligations.
Illegal eviction and harassment, including applications for injunctions for re-entry.
Assignment and succession
Protected/statutory tenancies under the Rent Act 1977
Tolerated trespassers
Mortgage repossession and forfeiture proceedings
Service charge disputes
Housing allocation and transfers
All aspects of homelessness.
Other access to housing help, including through social services and asylum support

General civil litigation:

Claims arising out of commercial leases
Building disputes
Boundary disputes and transfer to land.

What will it cost?

Depending upon your financial circumstances you may qualify for legal aid

We will automatically carry out an assessment when we first have contact with you to see whether or not you are eligible.

If you are not entitled to legal aid we will discuss with you other ways of funding your case including no win no fee agreements where appropriate and fixed fees.

How to contact us

Our Housing, Public law and Property Team can assist with all these matters.

Meet our senior housing solicitors

HMB Housing services include

Testimonials

The Legal 500 publication, 2024 edition, has been gathering testimonials about Hopkin Murray Beskine. They include:

‘Hopkin Murray Beskine’s social housing team is among the best in the business. The team is relatively small, but the quality of the members is uniformly extremely high and, as well as providing an outstanding service to individual clients, they have long punched above their weight in terms of ground-breaking cases in the higher courts.’

‘Ann Bevington is one of the best solicitors I have worked with. She is knowledgeable, intelligent, dedicated and thorough, as well as being a pleasure to work with.

‘Lesley Curtis is a similarly dedicated and tenacious litigator and achieves fantastic results for her clients.’