SSB Law: single Burnley mum chased for £17,000 fears losing her home over 'no-win, no-fee' cavity wall claim

Sharon Lord, who lives in Healey Wood and has two children with additional needs, says she has been left "terrified" and "devastated" as she cannot afford to pay the legal fees and can only delay the bailiffs from taking her possessions.

It comes after SSB Law, who the 47-year-old college student says used "scare tactics" to coerce her into proceeding with the claim, went bust.

"I've been through a lot, but this is the worst. I feel complete devastation. I'm terrified I'm going to lose my house. I'm supposed to be starting university, and I won't be able to re-mortgage my house or get student finance because of the County Court Judgment in my name. I have no savings. We were already living on the breadline, so I returned to education to retrain as a counsellor. I'm nearly at the end of my mortgage and trying to make a better life for my children."

But those hopes, she adds, are "all gone".

"To say they've done me over is an understatement. They're going to take everything from me. The only outlook I can see is having my children's stuff taken away and then the house because that's the only thing I have. What else have I got to lose?"

A canvassing SSB Law representative approached her house in May 2020 to encourage her to seek compensation for a botched wall insulation job that caused extensive damp.

"They said it was no-win, no-fee, there would be no comeback, and they'd handle everything."

Sharon says she would have never pursued compensation if the firm had not made those promises.

"It would never have been something that entered my head. I knew I had damp and wouldn't stand a chance going back to the [cavity wall] company, but you move on with life. I'd have tried to correct the problem myself."

After she signed up, SSB Law surveyed the damage caused by the cavity work, claiming the repairs would cost around £65,000, excluding new insulation.

Sharon says the surveyor "told me my property was a write-off. The damage was coming in at £65,132.21. I died because when I got my property, I ripped it to bits from the ground up as it needed so much work. My house was only worth £65,000 at the most. I had put in so much work to rebuild it. I was devastated. When I went through their report, I was beside myself.

"I spoke to SSB Law, and the first thing that came to my head is that if there is so much damage, my house is worthless. They confirmed I wouldn't be able to sell the property. I was to-and-fro. I was terrified. I thought, how can that be? I have put so much work in, and it's not worth anything. It mortified me.

"Looking back, it was a scam to keep me in the claim. It was a scare tactic. You trust solicitors."

Sharon then received a court date of October 2023 for the compensation claim. But last August, SSB Law informed Sharon that the man who surveyed her house could no longer testify in court as he had moved to South Africa.

The court ordered a second survey, and SSB Law said Sharon no longer had a claim as the results contradicted the first.

"I was confused. How can you go from one extreme to the other?

"They were adamant there was nothing I could do and whether I wanted to proceed [with the claim] was irrelevant. They made it sound like if I did proceed to court, then proceedings could be brought against me for wasting the court's time. I agreed to drop the case under duress. I had no other choice."

Despite filing for administration last November, SSB Law informed her the same month of plans to take the original surveyor to court for botching the survey, assuring her she wouldn't have to pay anything.

This month, they informed her they had gone bust, and the opposition had applied to take her to court to cover the legal fees. She had seven days to appeal, but it was too late - SSB Law informed her after the deadline.

Sharon now has until Tuesday, February 27th, to pay £17,000. She says she approached Citizens Advice and various solicitors, who all told her they could not help.

"My head's all over the place. I can't concentrate. I have exams in two weeks, I'm working, I have two children, one who is autistic, and we have just found out the other has additional needs as well. I'm trying to deal with all that and not getting help from anywhere. I don't know what to do and where to go. I'm looking up all this information, but that's to keep my brain from thinking.

"I'm left in limbo."