Housing Associations

We provide the full range of tailored legal services to registered providers of social housing.

In this section

Amid significant legislative and regulatory changes andunder ever-increasing pressure and scrutiny to do more with less, registered providers of social housing need a trusted legal partner on-side to navigate their way to compliance and commercial success.

We provide the full range of legal support to registered providers to build, maintain and manage safe, sustainable communities — both through the extensive legal services we provide and the added social value investments we proactively make by donating our time and resources to our clients’ community projects.

We’re proud to be recognised in the top tiers of The Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners for our social housing excellence. As the law firm of choice for registered providers, we provide the full range of housing management, property and governance services as well as tailored advice relating to employment, environmental, planning, construction, commercial, regulatory, procurement and charity law matters — giving registered providers one single place to go for their legal needs.

Meet the team

Experienced advisors to registered providers

Our heritage in the sector means we truly understand the constitutional, regulatory and grant funding regimes in which registered providers operate. We’re at the cutting edge of the development and implementation of new legislation, regulation and guidance, including for schemes such as ‘Rent to Homebuy’, changes to the model shared ownership lease and the provision of governance advice to ensure that organisations are hearing and acting on resident’s voices.

We’re also a leader in the field of housing management and litigation, covering tenancy and policy advice, rent increase advice, housing disrepair, anti-social behaviour issues, tenant breaches, possession proceedings, injunctions, committals and all types of property and landlord and tenant litigation (including hoarding cases, party wall disputes and Equality Act challenges).

Our team is jointly led by experienced lawyers Josephine Morton and Helen Brown.

Josephine handles issues such as anti-social behaviour, discrimination, injunctions, possession, breaches of tenancy, rent arrears, housing disrepair, leasehold management (including lease interpretation), breaches of leases and service charge collection, as well as data protection matters.

Recognised as a Leading Partner in The Legal 500 2025, Helen leads our housing development sub-team, which works closely with our planning, construction, procurement and governance teams to advise registered providers on the entire lifecycle of a development project. This includes site acquisitions by way of option agreements, conditional contracts and development agreements as well as Section 106 purchases. We also advise on securitisation projects and stock transfers.

Trusted by

“The services we have received across a broad spectrum of areas within our business have been of a high quality and the users within our business consistently provide positive feedback.”

Your Housing Group

“Helen Brown is noted for her expertise in regeneration work.”

The Legal 500 2025

“Excellent breadth of knowledge… Everything available from one firm.”

The Legal 500, 2024

“Excellent advice which is bespoke to our needs. The whole team is responsive, knows our organisation well and clearly invests in its people.”

The Legal 500, 2024

“Josh Wing was excellent and really helped us to bring this sale to completion. He did a really great job of keeping me up to date and making sure that we made good progress, with a lot of back and forth between parties.”

Property Services Director, Castles & Coasts

“We're very grateful for the commitment and perseverance of Helen Brown and the team at Brabners during the negotiations.”

Cobalt Housing

Proud to support

Case highlights

Right to Buy and Right to Acquire

Advising Torus following a stock transfer on Right to Buy and Right to Acquire legislation and the question of remediation of title issues encountered on dealing with such matters. We also assisted in formulating a policy for dealing with this in future.

Anti-social behaviour possession claim

Representing Cobalt Housing in an anti-social behaviour possession claim after a fire broke out in the property when the tenant had overloaded the electrical system to support a cannabis growing operation.

Acquisition of commercial business

Advising Regenda on the purchase of the entire issued share capital of Eco-Gee — a commercial business that provides services used by Regenda that it intended to take in-house. This demonstrates part of the sector’s focus on partnership working and we were delighted to provide legal advice throughout the acquisition process, including on employment and property matters.

Residential leases and leasehold schemes

Advising various registered providers on residential leases (conventional and new-build shared ownership) and leasehold schemes for the elderly, bespoke low-cost home ownership schemes and criss-cross (Tyneside-lease) disposals of maisonettes.

Net-zero bungalows purchase

Advising Torus on purchase of net-zero carbon bungalows. We carried out due diligence on the site and negotiated the sale contract with the developer’s solicitor.

Financing advice

Advising various major RPs on the provision of financing and loan facilities, including around term loan and revolving credit, bond issues, cross-corporate guarantees and debentures.

Brokering joint venture agreement

Advising a special purpose vehicle (SPV) on a novel lettings concept where the owners were several major registered providers. We acted as an ‘honest broker’ to put a fair joint venture agreement in place that met all parties’ commercial requirements — protecting them from a governance perspective while allowing the SPV to operate autonomously (save for key decisions). We minimised legal costs that might have been incurred if each owner had been separately represented.