Litigation – Latent Defects Claims Officer

Litigation/Latent Defects Claims Officer
Tottenham Hale, London
Offering between £40,000-£45,000 per annum
Permanent

About The Company

This housing trust is a not for profit Community Benefit Society and a charitable housing association. They own and manage around 8,350 affordable homes, primarily in nine boroughs in north and east London, with many more in development. These homes are made up of a mix of affordable tenures and they provide housing for people nominated from local authority waiting lists, specialised accommodation for Key Workers and Shared Ownership homes to help people take their first step on the property ladder. Working in partnership with Outward they also provide housing for people with a wide range of support and care needs.

Key Responsibilities

• To assist the Litigation Lawyer in all aspects of work relating to dealing with Disrepair cases including research, lodging court documents.
• Performing office day to day administration work and provide general legal administrative support.
• To upload and record all incoming post.
• To manage the Legal inbox, to bring the teams attention to urgent matters.
• To prepare documents, files and bundles for court.
• Assist with updating templates and precedent documents.
• To update Project Status Form tracker and ensure that key dates are recorded, programmed and tracked.
• Manage invoice process, updating file notes, producing reports from IT systems.
• To be responsible for setting up Purchase Orders and paying invoices
• To reconcile supplier invoice accounts on a regular basis
• To carry out computerised and manual administration on a variety of databases used by the Property Services department
• To liaise with surveying staff to enable Disrepair cases to be progressed
• Liaise with colleagues and residents to provide a customer service in line with the company principles.
• To contribute to the effective running and development of the Repairs team. Where necessary to cover the work within any of the teams shown above
• Customer focused, clear, consistent and reliable responses given to more complicated or escalated complaints as speedily as is compatible with the level of complexity.
• Active communication and liaison with executive departments and interrogation of records, policies and procedures to gather information necessary to reply to alternative resolution complaints. This may include dealing with contractors, consultants or partners.

Requirements

• You will be a three year PQE contentious construction lawyer with experience of working within the property arena but with some non-contentious experience.
• You will have ideally worked, since qualification, as a full-time construction solicitor or similar role.
• You will have a strong academic background, ideally gaining a 2:1 at degree level and a postgraduate course in construction law will be advantageous;
• Experience of organising own workload and that of others and working to deadlines
• Experience in diary management and programming off work streams.
• Strong administrative and ability to work across varied work streams
• You will have a thorough understanding of the Housing Grants, Construction & Regeneration Act 1996, the Scheme for Construction Contracts (England & Wales) Regulations 1998 and the Civil Procedure Rules;
• Ability to use a range of IT systems (e.g. Microsoft Office package, Dynamics database, IPOS payment system) at intermediate level and a willingness to learn to use new applications
• Ability to use word, excel and PowerPoint
• An understanding of Disrepair issues relating to maintenance of properties,
• You will be proactive and prepared to work independently and intelligently exercise your own judgment with minimal supervision always adopting a can-do attitude
• You will be able to identify key issues in most complex cases, understand the business parameters within a case and communicate this effectively to senior management;

Benefits

• Offering up to £45k per annum
• 5% PRP Bonus

In our company values we aim for equity at all stages of the recruitment process, please let us know if we can do anything to make the process more accessible to you.