Home office: Southampton
Sarah Orchard
Chartered Legal Executive (Senior Associate)
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.
Recommendations
Sarah Orchard provides a very good service and is friendly, professional and knowledgeable.
The Legal 500
Clarke Willmott LLP are reliable, trustworthy and quality solicitors and Sarah Orchard, in particular, has been most helpful. Sarah Orchard is very accessible, diligent, and dependable when it comes to dealing with me and the Association’s legal needs. I have used multiple solicitors in the past, but the relationship with Sarah Orchard and Clarke Willmott LLP has proven to exceed my expectations.
The Legal 500
I truly find the depth and breadth of the team as magnificent. Whether I am dealing with Sarah Orchard or any other member of the team, I receive highly satisfying advice on social housing matters. The team has very strong knowledge and experience. They do not just take cases to make money, but they care about me as a client as well, by providing advices to help me save money.
The Legal 500