Sophie Bell

Housing & Property Disputes

Sophie Bell is a Partner in the Housing team at Hodge Jones & Allen. She has specialised in housing law for 18 years. Her work spans a wide range of practice areas covering all aspects of landlord and tenant and social housing law, including possession and eviction, homelessness reviews and appeals, judicial review cases and claims for disrepair.

Sophie is a strong advocate of tenant’s rights and seeks to ensure those rights are fully protected. She takes an efficient, robust and compassionate approach to all her cases, representing individuals against various opponents including councils, housing associations and private landlords. She works with many highly vulnerable clients, particularly in relation to threatened possession matters, often successfully ensuring that not only is a possession order or eviction avoided but that the landlords take further steps to assist their tenants.

Sophie has a wide knowledge of disrepair law and has recently achieved settlement in a number of cases whereby tenants have achieved substantial awards of damages, in addition to the completion of works to the property.

Sophie also regularly takes on more complex housing cases. She secured a positive outcome for an elderly and vulnerable client who had been unlawfully evicted from his home by a property developer. Her client’s name was not on the title deeds for the property and the lawful owner appeared to be deceased, yet Sophie was able to obtain an order to declare that the client was the sole legal owner of the house. Claims were successfully brought against the property company and persons unknown, with Sophie obtaining a possession order and a five-figure compensation payout for her client.

Sophie believes that tenants should be empowered wherever possible to stand up for their rights. She regularly seeks to find ways to ensure that the necessary information is made available to those who need it most to try and minimise the number of tenants and homeless individuals who do not know which way to turn.

Law, University College London, 2.1; Legal Practice Course, Distinction