We speak to David Deacon, a chartered surveyor who has spent his career in residential property. He founded Housing Disrepair Surveys, leading a team of Expert Witnesses operating nationwide in housing disrepair claims. Here, he tells us how the business came about, why impartiality is everything, and what advice he would give to any surveyor considering Expert Witness work.
I’ve been in and around property my entire life.
My father had a letting and management company, so my awareness of the industry started early. After finishing a Business Studies degree I moved to London – planning to give it a year – and then, somehow, 20 years passed.
I worked my way through various firms, from Chestertons’ property management team to Jones Lang LaSalle and CBRE, completed a distance learning Surveying degree, and became a chartered surveyor.
Then came a period of private residential development and investment, before I was asked if I could accept instructions in housing disrepair claims. That was where my Expert Witness career all started.
I grew into the housing disrepair sector.
A colleague of mine – who now runs our bookings and logistics team – is a long-term campaigner on housing matters and had real insight into the scale of the problem. When we started mapping it out, the numbers were striking: how much housing stock there is in the UK and how much of an issue poor-quality housing can be.
We always took the view that housing disrepair is a real thing. There is a process to be followed, and there are ethics to be followed. The only way things actually improve is through transparency and honesty.
We work for claimants and defendants in roughly equal measure.
We’ve always thought that honesty has to be front and centre of everything, and that doesn't change depending on who is instructing you. Single Joint Expert appointments are becoming more common, but it remains a challenge because there isn't sufficient pressure on parties to use a single Expert rather than appointing one each.
We were one of the first in our sector to adopt what we call a 'single for joint' approach.
If our opposing Expert surveyor doesn’t attend a survey, or we try three times to agree a mutually convenient date and can't, we'll complete the survey on our own. Once the other surveyor has been, we work with them to complete a joint schedule of works. It speeds up the process, rather than one side being delayed by the other, but the outcome is the same: a schedule of works has input from both surveyors with comments on each other’s entries. It works well because we focus on progressing matters
efficiently and constructively. The cases we're here for are people's homes and people's lives. That has to be the priority.
Impartiality isn't just an ethical position – it's a practical one.
I’ve seen Expert bias damage the sector's reputation and, in different ways, the people it's supposed to serve. We've always taken the view that a bad reputation comes quickly if your reports are anything other than impartial and honest.
We have a full-time employed chartered surveyor who quality audits everything that goes out.
I think we were one of the first in the sector to do this. She previously sat on leasehold tribunal panels, so she can interrogate a report from that perspective – checking it fully conforms with the requirements of a Part 35 expert report, that opinions on causation and recommendations are presented clearly, and that there are no grammatical or typographical errors. It helps us make sure that a solicitor, barrister or judge would be clear and able to understand the report.
Our golden rule is simple: if you're not happy to look a barrister in the eye and repeat it verbatim, it has no place being in your report.
So long as you are honest and clear, there is really nothing to fear from being called before a court. We've been in the sector for around eight years, and in that time there have only ever been five or six actual hearings at which our surveyors needed to attend. We consider it a testament to the quality of our work.
I've had my own report go to court.
The preparation was largely a briefing with the barrister on my side, but because my opinion hadn't shifted at all from when I originally did the survey, there wasn't much scope to be tripped up. That's the point. The cross-examination was uncomfortable in the way that being scrutinised always is, but if you know your report, you're simply explaining how you arrived at the conclusions you did.
Some of our more junior surveyors have been nervous going into hearings. Speaking to them afterwards, they all say broadly the same thing: it was fine because they could explain exactly how they came to their view.
The fee environment in this sector is something that concerns me.
As with many areas of litigation, there can be challenges around proportionality of costs, and it’s something the sector continues to evolve around. We are aware that high levels attract adverse attention; this may, however, overlook the good work being done.
Approaches vary across the sector, but the best outcomes tend to come from a collaborative and pragmatic approach. In an ideal world, if everyone was fair and reasonable about their fees, there's no reason the whole sector couldn't continue to function well.
Awaab's Law [which requires social landlords in England to investigate and repair damp and mould hazards within strict timeframes] has brought its own complications.
In principle, it tightens up responsibilities that always should have existed. But the guidance has landed broadly, and many surveyors acting as Expert Witnesses are now concerned about being pinned to conclusions on matters affecting people's health – something that historically sat outside the surveyor's remit.
A surveyor can look at mould on a wall and take a view, but that view should be caveated: further assessment required. We've been working with another firm to develop a best practice guide specifically for housing condition claims, which the EWI has been very supportive of.
What keeps me going is the variety, and the sense that this work actually matters.
Every case is different. Even now, once reports have gone through our QA process, I still have a look through them before they go out – partly professional interest, partly because some of the situations people are living in are genuinely striking.
We've had tenants in tears when surveyors arrive because they feel like someone is finally helping them. I think that can get lost in the argument and the process. These are people's homes. The cases are a reminder of that, and it's what makes the work feel worthwhile.
My advice to any surveyor considering Expert Witness work?
Remember that your report is for the court, not for the client. Full stop. We've seen cases where a surveyor has changed their report to keep their instructing party happy. The case has then collapsed in court, and the situation became difficult for that surveyor.
Impartiality and honesty are not optional extras – they are the whole point. And if you ever find yourself in court, know your report. If you wrote it honestly and you know it thoroughly, there is very little a barrister can do to unsettle you.