Accommodation Claims - Expert Evidence & Caselaw for Personal Injury Lawyers

Introduction

Most of these claims involve the problems which arise if a claimant needs to move home because of present or future disability.

The accommodation element may exceed £1 million for a badly injured young claimant. However, there is legal uncertainty surrounding some aspects of the claims because of a historically low discount rate.

The Court of Appeal decisions in Swift v Carpenter and Martin v Salford will be considered in detail.

What You Will Learn

This webinar will cover the following:

• What does the architect need to consider?
• The present housing - whether it is suitable and if not, why not?
• The possibility of adapting the present home, moving elsewhere or buying a plot of land
• The adaptations that are needed because of the claimant’s disabilities
• Likely future need with the ageing process and the effect on accommodation needs
• Other members of the family (parents, children, visitors and their accommodation)
• Higher running costs which arise because of the injuries
• What does the financial expert need to consider?
• The means by housing could be provided if the capital is not provided from the claim
• The costs of rental, interest only mortgages and similar financial products
• The potential impact on the claimant and family of repeated house moves
• The incidental costs of different solutions
• The development of the law up to Roberts v Johnstone
• Successive views on the discount rate leading up to Wells v Wells
• Recent cases which have highlighted the problems disclosed by the negative discount rate set in February 2017 culminating in Swift v Carpenter
• An analysis of why the Court of Appeal reached the decision they did and the recent law in Martin v Salford

This webinar was recorded on 6th March 2023