Vulnerable Claimants and Housing Disrepair Costs: When Is Additional Work Recoverable?

A client needs more contact than usual. Instructions take longer. Documents have to be explained more than once. An interpreter is required. The solicitor records the extra time — and the Points of Dispute come back saying the client care is excessive and the attendances should be reduced.

That objection is sometimes right. It also sometimes misses an express provision of the rules. CPR 44.3(5)(f) includes, among the proportionality factors, additional work undertaken or expense incurred due to the vulnerability of a party or any witness.

Vulnerability is not only a client-care issue. It is a costs issue.

But the rule does not say that a vulnerable client means higher recoverable costs. The operative words are additional work, expense incurred and due to. The chain has to be shown:

vulnerability → additional requirement → additional work or expense → reasonable response → reasonable cost.

The last link is the one usually missing when these arguments fail.

What the rules actually say

The costs provision is CPR 44.3(5)(f). The definition sits elsewhere, in Practice Direction 1A, which governs the participation of vulnerable parties and witnesses.

PD 1A paragraph 3: a person should be considered vulnerable when a factor — which could be personal or situational, permanent or temporary — may adversely affect their participation in proceedings or the giving of evidence.

Paragraph 4 gives a non-exhaustive list of factors:

• age, immaturity or lack of understanding;
• communication or language difficulties, including literacy;
• physical disability or impairment, or health condition;
• mental health condition or significant impairment of any aspect of intelligence or social functioning, including learning difficulties;
• the impact on them of the subject matter of, or facts relevant to, the case;
• their relationship with a party or witness, including domestic abuse or intimidation; and
• social, domestic or cultural circumstances.

Paragraph 6 asks the court, with the assistance of the parties, to identify vulnerability at the earliest possible stage of proceedings. That matters for costs as much as for participation — a vulnerability first raised when the Points of Dispute arrive is a vulnerability nobody recorded at the time.

The test is functional, not a label

The definition turns on effect, not category. So:

• being elderly does not by itself make a person vulnerable for litigation purposes;
• a diagnosis does not by itself generate additional legal work; and
• speaking English as a second language does not by itself justify extra time on every attendance.

The question is how the particular factor affected this person’s ability to understand, participate, give instructions or provide evidence.

XX v Jordan Young: both halves of the argument in one case

XX v Jordan Young & Aviva Insurance Ltd [2025] EWHC 2073 (SCCO), a decision of Costs Judge Nagalingam of 4 August 2025, is the most useful recent illustration. It was a personal injury case rather than a disrepair claim, and the vulnerability analysis transfers even though the subject matter does not.

Vulnerability was established by combination

At [37] the court identified the relevant factors together:

• significant physical injuries, alongside injury to a family member;
• isolation during Covid-19 lockdowns, affecting a previously sociable individual;
• age; and
• language barriers requiring interpreters, including for documents, the claimant’s native Turkish being a particular dialect.

And at [36], in terms worth quoting when the point is argued:

“There is no automatic presumption that a Claimant of advanced years alone equates to vulnerability.”

That is the sentence to have available when a paying party suggests a claimant firm is applying a label. Vulnerability is fact-sensitive, and the court said so.

And it did not immunise the bill

Having accepted vulnerability, the court still made a further proportionality reduction after the line-by-line assessment. Internal communications came down from £22,946.15 plus VAT to £10,000 plus VAT at [54], bringing the bill to £324,029.77 at [55].

That is why the case is worth citing on either side of the argument. Vulnerability can explain additional reasonable expenditure. It does not make unreasonable or disproportionate expenditure immune from assessment.

Why this matters in Housing Disrepair

Disrepair litigation regularly involves tenants whose circumstances make participation harder — difficulty reading correspondence, a need for an interpreter, a physical impairment affecting attendance, difficulty using the telephone, trouble understanding legal documents, a learning difficulty, anxiety around inspections, or difficulty assembling evidence without help.

It also matters because of how these bills get attacked. The paying party’s framing is usually:

Damages were modest, therefore the costs must be disproportionate.

CPR 44.3(5) does not permit that shortcut. Proportionality takes in the sums in issue, the value of non-monetary relief, complexity, additional work generated by the paying party’s conduct, wider factors and additional work or expense caused by vulnerability. In disrepair, the repairs themselves are frequently the main outcome — and the vulnerability factor sits alongside additional work the landlord generated in the same subsection.

The mistake to avoid

A tenant is not vulnerable for CPR purposes simply because:

• the property is in poor condition;
• they are a social tenant;
• there are children in the household;
• they receive benefits; or
• the claim concerns damp and mould.

Those may matter elsewhere in the case. Paragraph (f) concerns vulnerability of a party or witness and additional work caused by that vulnerability. Diluting the causal requirement is how a good argument stops being believed.

Children in the property

Worth being precise. CPR 44.3(5)(f) refers to a party or any witness. A child living at the property is not automatically within paragraph (f) merely because the disrepair affects them. If the child is a party or a relevant witness the position may differ. Otherwise their circumstances may be relevant to the claim without every associated cost becoming a vulnerability cost.

What additional work might vulnerability actually generate?

Each row is a possibility, not an entitlement. The file still has to show it happened and why.

Additional contact is not automatically excessive contact

Suppose the challenge is to thirty client telephone calls. The right question is still: why were thirty calls required?

The answer cannot be “the client was vulnerable”. It has to engage:

• what the vulnerability was;
• how it affected communication;
• why telephone rather than written contact;
• why instructions had to be repeated;
• whether all thirty were caused by it;
• whether some could have been combined; and
• whether the durations were reasonable.

A credible argument defends part of the time and concedes the rest. Saying “the first three additional attendances were plainly linked to the communication difficulty; the next six were routine” is more persuasive than treating every call as protected — and it is the same discipline that makes a fee earner grade argument credible.

Two worked examples

Language difficulty

A claimant cannot reliably understand substantive written correspondence without assistance. The file involves an expert report, proposed repairs, a Part 36 offer and settlement terms.

Interpreter involvement, longer attendances, additional organisation and confirmation that the advice was genuinely understood may all reasonably follow. That is materially different from recording “client speaks another language”. The recoverable element is the work caused by the communication difficulty, not the difficulty itself.

Literacy

A client communicates well verbally but struggles with lengthy documents. The solicitor telephones rather than emails, explains the expert’s conclusions, talks through the works schedule, explains an offer and takes instructions orally.

The paying party sees multiple telephone attendances. Without the context on the file, legitimate vulnerability-related time reads as inefficient handling — which is an evidential failure rather than a legal one.

Record the reason, not just the attendance

Compare:

“Telephone call with client — 0.4”

“Telephone attendance to explain expert’s proposed works and settlement implications with interpreter; confirm instructions — 0.4”

The second does not guarantee recovery. It explains why the work was different, which is the necessary first step.

But do not over-record

A time narrative should not carry detailed diagnoses, private family circumstances or confidential medical history that adds nothing to the costs explanation. Usually it is enough to record that a communication adjustment was required, that an interpreter was needed, or that the client could not deal with written correspondence without assistance.

The costs judge needs enough to understand the work — not the claimant’s private history.

Vulnerability and defendant conduct can overlap

A vulnerable claimant may need more support each time the repair position changes, while the landlord repeatedly changes the proposed works, misses appointments or withdraws offers. The narrative may then engage both CPR 44.3(5)(d) and CPR 44.3(5)(f).

Do not double count. If the same 0.5 attendance is explained by both factors, it remains one attendance. Two justifications for one item is a stronger argument; it is not two items.

Fixed recoverable costs: CPR 45.10, and why it usually does not apply here

The CPR recognises vulnerability in the fixed costs regime too, and more explicitly. Under CPR 45.10, the court may consider a claim for costs above fixed recoverable costs where a party or witness is vulnerable, that vulnerability has required additional work, and by reason of that additional work alone the claim is for an amount at least 20% greater than the fixed recoverable costs. If the threshold is met the court may summarily assess the costs or order detailed assessment.

The Housing Disrepair caveat

This is not the ordinary route in a disrepair claim, and it should not be presented as one. CPR 45.1(4) provides that Sections VI and VII do not apply to a claim which relates, in whole or in part, to a residential property or dwelling and which, in respect of that property, includes a claim for possession, disrepair or unlawful eviction.

So for an ordinary residential disrepair claim the principal provision remains CPR 44.3(5)(f), and the wider position on whether these claims are assessed rather than fixed is covered in our guide to whether HDR claims are still standard basis.

The significance of CPR 45.10 here is different and still worth having: it shows the CPR recognising, in both the assessed and fixed costs contexts, that vulnerability generates legitimate additional legal work. That is a useful answer to a paying party treating the point as advocacy rather than rule.

The question worth asking on every file

What would this case have cost without the vulnerability?

Imagine the same claim with a client who could read and understand all correspondence, needed no interpreter, gave concise instructions and required no adjustments. That is the ordinary case cost. The difference is the vulnerability-related element.

It will rarely be calculable to the minute. The conceptual separation still does most of the work, because it forces the argument onto the ground where it is strongest.

Answering the challenge in Replies

The standard Point:

“Client care is excessive. There are an unreasonable number of telephone attendances and updates for a claim of this nature.”

A weak Reply says the claimant was vulnerable and the time was reasonably incurred. A strong one takes it in five steps: identify the vulnerability, explain its practical effect, identify the additional work, tie it to CPR 44.3(5)(f), and defend only what the evidence supports.

The proposed reduction does not address the additional work required as a result of the Claimant’s identified communication difficulties. The Claimant required interpreting assistance and substantive advice had to be given verbally rather than by written correspondence alone. That affected the attendances concerning the expert evidence, the Defendant’s works proposals and settlement.

CPR 44.3(5)(f) expressly identifies additional work undertaken or expense incurred due to the vulnerability of a party as relevant to proportionality. The receiving party does not contend that vulnerability renders every client attendance automatically recoverable. The specific attendances identified above arose because of the adjustment required to enable the Claimant to understand the advice and give informed instructions.

The final sentence is what makes the rest of it credible.

The paying party can still dispute the amount

Accepting the causal link is not accepting the figure. A paying party can properly say:

• an interpreter was reasonably required — but why did the conference take three hours?
• telephone explanation was reasonably required — but why five calls where one longer conference would have covered it?

Those are fair questions and the ordinary assessment of reasonableness survives the vulnerability finding, as XX itself demonstrates.

What vulnerability does not justify

• every telephone call or client update;
• excessive internal discussion;
• duplicated work;
• inappropriate seniority;
• poor delegation or inefficient handling; or
• work unrelated to the vulnerability.

The additional cost must bear a reasonable relationship to the additional need.

An audit before the bill goes out

• What is the vulnerability, and is it a factor within PD 1A paragraph 4 or otherwise affecting participation?
• How did it affect this claimant, and when was it identified?
• Is it recorded contemporaneously, or only in hindsight?
• What additional work or expense did it cause?
• Would that work have been required anyway?
• Were communications adapted, an interpreter used, conferences longer or more numerous?
• Was senior involvement genuinely required, and was routine work still delegated?
• Is any of it duplicated, and is sensitive information recorded proportionately?
• Does the bill explain the additional work, and can the Replies point to specific items?
• Does the proportionality submission expressly address CPR 44.3(5)(f)?

If the answer to “what additional work did the vulnerability actually cause?” is unclear, the argument is not ready to run.

Key takeaway

The proposition is not that vulnerable claimants are allowed higher costs. It is:

CPR 44.3(5)(f) requires the proportionality assessment to recognise additional work or expense genuinely caused by vulnerability.

And the qualification carries equal weight:

That does not make unrelated, duplicated or excessive work recoverable.

A strong argument shows what made participation more difficult, what adjustment was required, what additional work or expense resulted, and why that response was reasonable. Writing “client vulnerable” in the Replies does none of that.

We prepare and negotiate Housing Disrepair costs for claimant solicitor firms, including vulnerability and proportionality arguments. Has additional client-care time been challenged? Send us the bill, the Points of Dispute and the file and we will identify what CPR 44.3(5)(f) genuinely supports, on a fixed fee agreed before instruction.

Sources: CPR 44.3(5)(f); Practice Direction 1A, in particular paragraphs 3, 4 and 6, on the participation of vulnerable parties and witnesses; CPR 45.1(4) and CPR 45.10 for the fixed costs position; and XX v Jordan Young & Aviva Insurance Ltd [2025] EWHC 2073 (SCCO), Costs Judge Nagalingam, 4 August 2025, from the approved judgment published by the National Archives — the observation on advanced years at [36], the combination of factors at [37], and the further proportionality reduction at [54]–[55].