Throughout this series, I’ve explored the role accommodation plays in serious injury and clinical negligence claims. It is an area I have seen from two different but complementary perspectives: over many years acting for claimants and, more recently, through my work with PLG and its specialist property finding service.
From finding suitable rental accommodation during rehabilitation to securing a permanent home following settlement, the objective is the same: ensuring the claimant’s environment supports their needs and rehabilitation.
Traditionally, those conversations have tended to centre around a single property and, often, an assumption that the ultimate objective is a home of the claimant’s own.
Two recent judgments provide a useful reminder that accommodation claims are rarely that straightforward.
In APM (by MJH) v Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust [2026] EWHC 1834 (KB), the issue was whether a catastrophically injured child living between separated parents might require two suitable homes.
In JBX v Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust [2026] EWHC 2294 (KB), the issue was very different. The claimant sought damages based upon moving from specialist residential care into his own adapted home with a bespoke care package. The Court concluded that, on the evidence, specialist residential accommodation was the appropriate basis upon which to assess the claim.
At first sight the cases might appear to point in different directions. I think they make the same fundamental point: the claimant’s needs and circumstances should shape the accommodation strategy, not the other way around.
When One Home Isn’t Enough
The claimant in APM is an eight-year-old child with a hypoxic ischaemic brain injury who spends approximately 60% of his time with his mother and 40% with his father. Neither parent’s existing property was suitable.
His long-term prognosis remains uncertain and a final trial is likely to be several years away. The claimant therefore sought a substantial interim payment which would allow his accommodation needs to be addressed now.
Part of the argument was that, rather than purchasing one property and renting another for potentially many years, it might make more financial and practical sense to purchase two homes.
The Court deliberately avoided deciding whether two purchases should ultimately be funded. Instead, for the purposes of the interim payment, it proceeded on the more conservative assumption that one property would be purchased and the second rented. Importantly, however, it left open the possibility that two purchased properties might ultimately be reasonable.
The full interim payment sought was allowed.
What particularly interests me about APM is the issue of timing.
We naturally think about accommodation as part of the eventual assessment of damages. But the claimant’s accommodation need exists now.
That matters particularly for children. If litigation continues for several years, waiting until settlement or trial can mean losing a significant part of the period during which suitable accommodation could support their rehabilitation and family life.
Long-term prognosis may have to wait. Rehabilitation cannot.
It is also where early input from a specialist property finder can add real value. Before the legal team reaches a settled view about whether the answer is purchase, rental, one property or potentially two, it helps to understand what the realistic property options actually are. That practical information can inform the accommodation strategy rather than simply follow it.
But Wanting a Home Is Not Enough
JBX provides an important counterpoint.
JBX had profound and complex disabilities following a catastrophic hypoxic brain injury and had lived for many years in specialist residential care.
His claim was advanced on the basis that he should move into his own adapted property with a bespoke care package. The defendant argued that his needs should instead be met in specialist residential accommodation.
The Court preferred the residential model.
I don’t see JBX as an argument against home-based care. Its importance lies in why the claimant failed to establish the home-care model on the evidence.
The legal question was not simply what the family preferred or what might appear to be the best possible arrangement. It was what was reasonably required to meet this particular claimant’s needs.
There were weaknesses in the evidence explaining why home care had been chosen and why residential alternatives were unsuitable. The Deputy supporting home care had not read the medical evidence, and aspects of the expert evidence were criticised for not sufficiently evaluating the advantages, disadvantages and risks of the competing accommodation models.
For claimant lawyers, that is an important lesson.
If we say that a claimant requires a particular accommodation solution, we have to demonstrate why.
Start With the Claimant, Not the Property
There can be an understandable tendency in catastrophic injury cases to begin with an objective:
“We need to get this claimant home.”
JBX reminds us that the process needs to start one stage earlier.
What are the claimant’s actual needs? What accommodation options could realistically meet them? What are the advantages and risks of each? And why, having considered the alternatives, is the proposed solution reasonable for this particular claimant?
That doesn’t mean the cheapest solution is necessarily the right one. Nor should it prevent ambitious accommodation solutions where they genuinely meet the claimant’s needs.
It means that the preferred solution needs to be tested rather than assumed.
Put the two cases together and the message becomes clearer.
APM tells us not to allow conventional assumptions or litigation timescales to prevent a child having accommodation which reflects how they actually live.
JBX tells us not to assume that the family’s or professional team’s preferred accommodation model necessarily meets the legal test.
Together, they point towards early but evidence-led accommodation planning.
More Than Finding a Property
That brings me back to the role of the property finder.
The role of a specialist property finder should not necessarily begin when somebody hands over a specification and says: find us this property.
Early involvement can help the wider team understand what is actually achievable. What properties exist in the relevant area? Is purchasing realistic? Is renting? Can the required adaptations be delivered? How long will that take? If a child lives across two households, what does that mean in practice?
Those practical realities can inform the decisions of solicitors, case managers, Deputies, architects and clinical experts rather than simply implementing a decision that has already been made.
There is no standard accommodation solution.
Sometimes the answer may be one adapted home. Sometimes, as APM illustrates, family circumstances may require consideration of two. In cases involving the most complex clinical needs, JBX reminds us that specialist residential accommodation may also need to be properly considered and compared with a home-based package.
The process should be straightforward even if the answer isn’t:
Understand the claimant. Identify the needs. Investigate the realistic options. Test them properly. Evidence the solution. Then deliver it.
Perhaps that is the most useful lesson from these two very different cases.
Accommodation claims are not ultimately about houses. They are about enabling people to live their lives.
