Sarah Orchard

Sarah provides advice and assistance on all aspects of housing management.

Sarah is a Chartered Legal Executive (Senior Associate) in the Housing Management team in Southampton.

Sarah has vast experience in all aspects of housing management and regularly provides advice and assistance to Registered Providers and private landlords. This includes the drafting of tenancy agreements and relevant documents, defending disrepair claims, seeking possession due to anti social behaviour, failed succession, subletting and breach of tenancy, injunction and committal proceedings.

Sarah regularly attends client events and delivers bespoke training to clients in order to empower officers.

Sarah previously worked as a Housing Supervisor under a Legal Aid contract so brings a breadth of knowledge and awareness of key issues affecting Registered Providers.

How Sarah can help you

Sarah specialises in complex possession claims and injunction applications where there are issues of mental capacity, disability and Equality Act 2010 defences. She has unique insight having previously handled a matter in the Court of Protection in relation to hoarding.

She provides a friendly, personable and responsive service to clients – focusing both on the legal issues and practical advice to resolve a matter.

Experience

• Hoarding: progressed a possession case to the Court of Protection in order for there to be Best Interest decisions made on behalf of the tenant. This enabled crucial cyclical works to be completed in the property, and for there to be a support plan in place to ensure ongoing needs of the tenant were met.
• Complex cases: regularly obtains outright possession orders in cases where the tenant is disabled, within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010, but is causing significant anti social behaviour which effects surrounding neighbours.
• Injunction applications: Obtaining without notice injunction orders against tenants, which excluded them from their home. Due to severity of violence, an immediate possession order was also obtained, on an expedited basis.
• Dealing with vexatious tenants: Obtaining injunction orders limiting contact from vexatious tenants and ultimately seeking possession orders due to breaches.