A Housing Association is currently looking for a Housing Legal Assistant on a temporary basis for about 6 months.
Key responsibilities
Lead on rent and service charge recovery cases referred to you by the operational teams, with the goal of maximising income for the organisation.
Manage other legal cases assigned to you. Provide support to Paralegals, team managers and team leaders as required – particularly those where there is a crossover with arrears to ensure cases are managed in a joined-up way. This may include housing and lease management issues including disrepair
Work and support paralegals and work effectively with other departments on cases that may require their input to successfully recover service charge debt.
Represent the company well in external settings such as court, multi-agency meetings, local authority engagement meetings, mediation and casework panels on tenancy and lease breaches
Prepare, draft and respond to all necessary legal documentation and bundles, evidence and witness statements as required
Work effectively with panel solicitors where cases require external involvement
Take ownership and accountability for your caseload in accordance with performance indicators. Seek advice, flag risk and offer mitigations on issues that may rise
Work closely with the operational teams and tenancy sustainment and safeguarding teams, to be confident that legal escalation takes place once all reasonable proactive engagement with residents has been exhausted, always focusing on tenancy sustainment objectives
Support and advise operational teams to ensure legal risks are identified and mitigated appropriately. Proactively feed into policy and practices to support this
Demonstrate adequate legal knowledge for the role, be inquisitive and keep up to date with developments in the law
Work alongside legal colleagues to deliver meaningful training, guidance and advice to operational teams
PAYE £20.84 Umbrella £27.56 Hybrid role
Essential requirements
Must have a legal background in Housing
Must be able to demonstrate relevant experience of working with income and debt recovery practices within a legal department or practice, housing association or similar
Proven ability to develop and sustain strong relationships within the legal team, operational team clients and third party stakeholders (internal and external)
Legal drafting skills
Must be immediately available or on short notice