Documents obtained by the Guardian suggest the threat of further financial pain amid a deepening cost-of-living crisis is being used by government lawyers to keep compensation cases out of court. Hundreds of military families are understood to be seeking legal recourse at a time when the Service Family Housing (SFA) system has been inundated with complaints. The Foreign Office has not come forward to defend legal claims that have already been made, arguing that the government has failed to provide safe and well-maintained homes. Government lawyers have instead sent aggressive letters warning that unless the claims are dropped, the State Department will seek full costs in the event of a subsequent ruling in their favour. The strategy has been applied even when the county court has issued a “default” judgment in favor of the military family in cases where the Department of Defense did not defend a claim. In correspondence seen by this newspaper, a senior government lawyer wrote: “The purpose of this letter is to make an open offer to you that if you agree to have the default judgment set aside and stay the claim pending a consent order process (a draft copy of which is attached), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will not seek the legal costs of this proceeding. “If, however, you do not agree to this by the end of Wednesday 14 September 2022, we will issue the application and seek the full legal costs of the Department of Health.” In a letter to a second claimant, the same government lawyer, representing the Treasury Department’s lawyer, wrote: “If you do not agree and put us to the trouble and expense of a contested application, we will seek the legal costs of the Department of State (which, I have little doubt it can be recovered by deduction from your pay). Please reply no later than 4pm. of Monday, October 3, 2022.” When approached, the lawyer behind the mailing declined to comment. A Ministry of Defense spokesman said: “These cases relate to rental properties outside the UK. We will not comment further due to ongoing legal proceedings.” The revelations drew cross-party condemnation. Shadow Defense Secretary John Healey said: “This is completely unacceptable. Ministers must withdraw the legal dogs of the Ministry of National Defense and abandon these threats to the families of the forces. “When service families have to go to court to get basic repairs done, it confirms deep failings with service housing. However, ministers do not have a proper plan to fix the problems.” Mark Francois, a former Tory defense minister, said: “Ministers clearly need to step in urgently to sort out this terrible mess.” Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative chairman of the Commons defense committee, said: “All service personnel and their families deserve an appropriate standard of housing. “When not on business, this is where those in uniform spend their time and it’s where the family calls home. Increasingly, it is the constraints and pressures of family life that tip the balance in the obligation of serving personnel to leave the military.” One whistleblower said the MoD was seeking to “intimidate” service personnel, but that a growing number of service personnel were preparing to take legal action over the DoD’s failure to ensure their homes were decent. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. According to documents obtained by the Guardian, a service family, after a successful claim at the county court, secured a writ and sent bailiffs to the Home Office’s Defense Infrastructure Agency headquarters in Lichfield in Staffordshire. A senior Ministry of Defense official appealed to the bailiff to leave without removing property in lieu of payment, as it “could go all over the news,” according to an Oct. 4 report of the incident. Alfie Usher, a former paratrooper who now runs claims management firm Claims Bible, said he had received 400 expressions of interest in the past fortnight from service personnel interested in suing the MoD, of which he expected 100 would meet the limit for a claim. He said: “They include cases of black mold and there are reports of asbestos. A guy who found asbestos in his kitchen was just told to avoid the area. Heating is also great, especially with those who have children. “Claim is the only way: when it starts costing them money, the Foreign Office will start listening. It’s no profit, no pay and in the worst case, when we make a claim, the Foreign Office will come and fix it.” The state of housing rented to armed forces personnel and their families has long been a concern. Under a 1996 deal brokered by then Defense Secretary Michael Portillo, around 57,000 such properties were sold to Annington Homes for £1.66bn. The company is now owned by Terra Firma, the private equity giant founded by billionaire Guy Hands. Under the agreement, the government took out a 200-year lease on the houses in order to continue providing accommodation for service personnel. The MoD retained responsibility for repairs and maintenance. Unable to capitalize on rising property values, the State Department struggled to maintain the aging housing stock. Four years ago, the National Audit Office found that house price rises meant the government was between £2.2bn and £4.2bn worse off than it would have been if it had kept the property portfolio. In September, the MoD’s Defense Infrastructure Agency was forced to apologize for the “unacceptable” service provided by three outsourcing firms awarded £650m contracts for complaint handling, housing allocation and maintenance.
