Defending Grade A Rates in Housing Disrepair Claims: When Are Senior Solicitor Rates Recoverable?

A familiar objection appears in housing disrepair Points of Dispute: “this was a straightforward disrepair matter which did not require a Grade A fee earner; the rates should be reduced to Grade C”. Sometimes that has force. Often it does not. There is no rule that disrepair work must be done at Grade C or D simply because the claim concerns disrepair.

But the opposite proposition matters just as much. A solicitor being Grade A does not make every task they touch recoverable at a Grade A rate.

The analysis that actually decides these disputes has five parts:

• does the fee earner genuinely fall within Grade A;
• is the rate claimed reasonable;
• was it reasonable for someone that senior to do this particular work;
• was the work capable of delegation actually delegated; and
• are the resulting costs reasonable and proportionate overall?

So the strongest way to defend Grade A rates is not to insist that senior solicitors are entitled to senior rates. It is to show why senior input was reasonably required on this file.

What is a Grade A fee earner?

The Guideline Hourly Rates describe Grade A as solicitors and legal executives with over eight years’ experience. The Guide to the Summary Assessment of Costs is fuller: more than eight years’ post-qualification experience including at least eight years’ litigation experience, with separate provision for appropriately experienced Fellows of CILEX, and the court retaining discretion on equivalent experience.

That produces the first distinction, and it is the one most often collapsed:

Fee earner grade and recoverable hourly rate are different questions.

A fee earner may plainly be Grade A while the paying party still disputes:

• whether Grade A involvement was necessary;
• whether parts of the work should have been delegated;
• whether the geographical band is right;
• whether the rate exceeds the guideline;
• whether the time was reasonable; and
• whether the total is proportionate.

Each of those is answered separately, and a Reply that runs them together answers none of them.

The 2026 Grade A guideline rates

The rates below took effect on 1 January 2026.

The full table across all grades, and what changed from 2025, is in our guide to the 2026 Guideline Hourly Rates.

These are a guide and a starting point, not a fixed costs table, and the Guide is explicit that locality or postcode alone should not determine the reasonable rate in an individual case. Two situations follow, and they carry different burdens:

• Claiming at the applicable Grade A rate. The argument is whether Grade A work was reasonably required.
• Claiming above it. Everything above, plus a separate justification for making the paying party meet a rate beyond the guideline.

Are Grade A rates recoverable in disrepair claims?

Potentially, yes. Nothing in CPR Part 44 fixes a grade by claim type.

On the standard basis the court asks whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred and are reasonable and proportionate in amount, and CPR 44.4 requires it to consider all the circumstances including the conduct of the parties, the value involved, the importance of the matter, the complexity or difficulty of the issues, the skill, effort, specialised knowledge and responsibility involved, the time spent, and the circumstances in which the work was done.

Every one of those is fact-sensitive. So the question is not:

“Is this a housing disrepair claim?”

It is:

“What did this particular housing disrepair claim reasonably require?”

Disrepair is not automatically junior work

Plenty of disrepair work is routine, and it is worth conceding that plainly. Standard updates, chasers, administrative correspondence and evidence collation will usually sit with junior fee earners. But it does not follow that every aspect of every file is junior work.

A disrepair claim can involve disputed liability, arguments about notice, multiple categories of defect, extensive damp and mould, structural problems, water penetration, defective heating, electrical concerns, expert evidence, disputes over the scope of remedial works, repeated failed repairs, access disputes, substantial disclosure, vulnerable tenants, allegations about causation or lifestyle, difficult settlement strategy, Part 36 decisions, applications, or landlord conduct that materially increases the work required.

Some of that reasonably requires senior judgment. Much of it does not. The claim is won by showing which is which.

Grade A fee earner does not mean Grade A work

This is the point most bills get wrong.

A partner with twenty years’ litigation experience is unquestionably Grade A. But where that partner is sending routine chasers, arranging appointments, requesting documents, making simple administrative calls, updating the client without substantive advice or producing standard-form correspondence, the paying party has an obvious delegation argument and will make it.

The Guide recognises delegation directly. Its example is attendance behind counsel, where the work should ordinarily go to a more junior fee earner unless the importance of the hearing warrants senior involvement. The principle is wider than the example: seniority does not remove the need for sensible delegation.

A strong costs claim therefore does not defend every senior attendance indiscriminately. It identifies the work where seniority genuinely mattered, and it is more persuasive on those items precisely because it has not fought for the others.

Where the line usually falls

This is not a tariff. The same task can require different experience on different files. But it gives the right frame: defend the work for what it required, not for who did it.

CPR 44.3(5) gives better arguments than damages alone

Disrepair costs disputes are routinely reduced to a comparison of damages recovered against costs claimed. That is an incomplete reading of the rule.

Proportionality under CPR 44.3(5) is not confined to the money. It expressly includes:

• the sums in issue;
• the value of any non-monetary relief;
• the complexity of the litigation;
• additional work generated by the conduct of the paying party;
• any wider factors, such as reputation or public importance; and
• any additional work or expense caused by the vulnerability of a party or witness.

That matters more in disrepair than almost anywhere else. A tenant may recover modest damages while also obtaining substantial repair works, treatment of damp and mould, rectification of water ingress, restored heating, replacement windows or electrical works. The damages figure does not describe that outcome.

Equally, a landlord that repeatedly fails to inspect, withholds records, disputes obvious defects, misses agreed repair dates or proposes inadequate works increases the reasonable work required — and the rule says so. Proportionality and conduct are the recurring battlegrounds in housing disrepair costs on the standard basis.

So the Reply should not say “the costs are proportionate given the work undertaken”. It should say why, in the rule’s own language.

Does a low settlement mean Grade A work was unreasonable?

Not automatically. The sum recovered is relevant; it is not the whole account of the case.

Smith v Wigan Borough Council [2026] EWHC 660 (SCCO) is worth using here, but only for a narrow proposition. It was not an hourly rates decision and should never be presented as authority approving Grade A rates. What it decided is that a £1,000 settlement plus repairs was not determinative of the track the claim would have been allocated to, and that the court had to look at the duration of the disrepair, the claimant’s vulnerability and the repair element — the full analysis is in our note on why a £1,000 settlement did not mean small claims costs.

The transferable point is limited but real: the settlement cheque does not describe the whole case.

A £1,500 settlement can sit behind years of repair failures, significant expert evidence, vulnerable occupants and difficult liability arguments. That does not by itself justify Grade A involvement. It does mean the damages figure alone does not disprove it.

If the rate exceeds the guideline

Here claimant firms should be realistic about the burden.

In Samsung Electronics Co Ltd v LG Display Co Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 466, Males LJ held that if a rate above the guideline is to be charged to the paying party, “a clear and compelling justification must be provided”, and that it was not enough to point to the case being commercial, or a competition case, or having an international element, unless there was something about those factors in the particular case that justified the excess.

One caveat worth carrying, because a paying party will otherwise supply it. That reasoning was directed at departing upward from London 1, where the guideline already assumes very heavy commercial work — the rates in issue were between £801.40 and £1,131.75 for Grade A against a guideline of £512. The requirement to justify a departure generalises; the specific reasoning was about the top of the table. Cite the principle, not the arithmetic.

A routine disrepair file is unlikely to carry an above-guideline rate merely because:

• the firm charges that rate privately;
• the client agreed it;
• the fee earner is a partner;
• the firm specialises in housing; or
• the case required a reasonable amount of work.

The safer split:

• At guideline: defend the grade, the task and the reasonableness of senior involvement.
• Above guideline: all of that, plus the departure itself, as a separate argument.

“The client agreed the rate” is not the answer

The retainer and inter partes recovery are different questions. A client may have agreed a rate; that does not oblige the paying party to reimburse it. On the standard basis the court is still asking whether the costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred and reasonable and proportionate in amount. A good Reply argues the litigation, not the retainer.

Senior involvement can cost less

A rate comparison assumes senior means more expensive. Cost depends on rate multiplied by time.

That does not make senior time preferable as a rule. It does show why the assessment should not become a search for the cheapest person physically capable of the task.

A short review by an experienced solicitor can identify the real issue quickly, cut unnecessary work, resolve a difficult point, prevent a misconceived application, or give a junior focused instructions. Where that happened, record it. The bill is far easier to defend when the file shows what the senior input achieved.

Supervision is not duplication

A junior runs the file, a Grade A solicitor reviews it, and the paying party says both cannot be recovered. Reasonable supervision is part of running litigation; unnecessary duplication is not. The distinction is usually visible on the file.

The narrative in the bill does much of this work. “Review file” tells the paying party nothing. Compare:

“Review surveyor report and landlord disclosure; consider disputed bathroom leak and scope of proposed remedial works before advising on Part 36 position.”

That is the same six minutes, described so that it can be defended.

Answering a Grade A challenge in Replies

Take the standard objection: modest value, straightforward matter, Grade C is sufficient. A weak Reply asserts the rates are reasonable and proportionate. That does not engage with anything. A strong Reply takes the objection apart.

1. Establish the grade

Say why the fee earner falls within Grade A, with the relevant experience for the period claimed.

2. Identify the rate

State whether it is below, at or above the applicable guideline. Do not make the costs judge work it out.

3. Explain what required seniority

Name features of this file: disputed notice, expert evidence, complex causation, substantial repair scope, proceedings strategy, significant offers, a vulnerable client, repeated landlord default, disclosure problems.

4. Show the delegation

If juniors did the routine work, say so. Nothing strengthens the senior time like evidence that the firm did not run everything at the top rate.

5. Argue proportionality in the rule’s terms

Repairs and other non-monetary relief, complexity, paying-party conduct, vulnerability, duration, expert evidence, the overall result — not damages in isolation. These are among the recurring reductions in housing disrepair Points of Dispute, and they are answerable.

6. If above guideline, justify that separately

The reasons supporting Grade A involvement do not automatically justify an above-guideline rate. Related questions, but distinct ones.

A framework for the Reply

The proposed reduction is not accepted. [Fee earner] was a Grade A solicitor with [relevant experience] throughout the period claimed, and the rate claimed is [at/below] the applicable 2026 [band] Guideline Hourly Rate.

The matter was not conducted exclusively at Grade A level; routine work was delegated where appropriate. Senior involvement was concentrated on [identify the liability, expert, procedural or settlement issues].

Senior review was reasonably required following [specific development], which required consideration of [specific issue] and materially affected the conduct and settlement of the claim.

The proportionality assessment is not confined to damages. The claim also involved [repair obligations and other non-monetary relief], [vulnerability], and additional work resulting from [specific conduct of the paying party].

That is a framework, not a precedent. Wording copied unchanged into every assessment defeats the point of it.

When to concede

Sometimes the paying party is right, and saying so is a costs strategy rather than a defeat.

Where a partner has spent real time on plainly routine work that could have been delegated, conceding those items protects the credibility of the stronger Grade A work elsewhere. Fighting for every six-minute unit weakens the negotiation on the items actually worth having. The aim is not to prove the paying party wrong about everything; it is to maximise defensible recovery.

An audit before the bill is served

Before serving a bill with substantial Grade A time, check:

• does the fee earner actually satisfy the Grade A criteria;
• is the band right, and are the dates matched to the correct year’s rates;
• is the rate below, at or above the guideline, and if above, what is the specific justification;
• which work genuinely required senior judgment, and which routine work was delegated;
• are vague entries explained by the underlying file;
• was expert evidence involved, and was liability materially disputed;
• were the repair obligations significant;
• did the landlord’s conduct generate additional work;
• was the tenant vulnerable, and did that cause extra work;
• was supervision targeted or repetitive; and
• does the bill tell that story on its face?

If those answers are unclear before service, they do not get easier once Points of Dispute arrive.

The lesson

Grade A is not excessive merely because the claim is housing disrepair.

Grade A is not recoverable merely because a Grade A solicitor did the work.

The defensible position sits between them, and it has six components: correct grade, correct rate, appropriate task, sensible delegation, file-specific justification, and overall proportionality. That is a considerably stronger argument than a job title.

How DMD Costs can help

We act for claimant solicitor firms on housing disrepair costs, and rate challenges are among the most common things we answer — fee earner grading, guideline rates, delegation, proportionality, surveyor fees, telephone calls, duplication, vulnerability, expert evidence and landlord conduct.

Received a Grade A challenge? Send us the bill, the Points of Dispute and the file material. We will review whether the Grade A work is genuinely defensible, identify the strongest file-specific arguments and prepare Replies built around the work actually done. We do not defend weak time because it happens to appear in the bill — the recovery comes from concentrating on what can properly be justified.

Key takeaway

The question is not “can Grade A rates be recovered in housing disrepair?”

It is “why did this task reasonably require Grade A experience, and can the file prove it?” Where the answer is clear, the fact that the claim concerns disrepair is not, by itself, a reason to reduce the work to Grade C.

Sources: Guideline Hourly Rates 2026, in force 1 January 2026; the Guide to the Summary Assessment of Costs on fee earner grades and delegation; CPR 44.3 and CPR 44.4; and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd v LG Display Co Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 466, where the “clear and compelling justification” requirement was directed at departures above the London 1 guideline rate. Smith v Wigan Borough Council [2026] EWHC 660 (SCCO) is a track allocation decision, cited here only for the narrower point that a settlement figure does not describe the whole claim.