Accommodation Claims And Negative Discount Rates

The recent judgment handed down by Mrs Justice Lambert in Swift v Carpenter [2018] EWHC 2060 (QB) marks only the second occasion on which the Court has been asked to consider accommodation claims in the context of negative discount rates.

In the present case, the claimant suffered serious lower limb injuries in a road traffic accident and her claim included an accommodation element, where it was claimed that the suitable accommodation would cost £900,000 more than the accommodation which the claimant had previously been living in.

The claimant proposed four alternative models for recovering this loss:

The first method proposed was based on an interest-only mortgage. The claimant submitted that a basic internet search...