Free legal advice if you have a housing problem

Legal aid for housing problems

You might get free legal help if you:

have a serious housing problem
get benefits or have a low income

What can legal aid can help with?

The most common housing problems legal aid could help with are:

stopping or delaying eviction from a tenancy
repossession because of mortgage arrears
illegal eviction and landlord harassment
challenging a council decision on a homeless application

You can sometimes get help if your home has serious repair problems.

Who can get legal aid

You can usually get legal aid if you get:

universal credit (UC)
pension credit guarantee
income related employment and support allowance (ESA)
income based jobseeker's allowance (JSA)
income support

If you do not get any of these benefits, you might get legal aid if your monthly income before tax is less than £2,657.

You can only get legal aid if have less than £733 a month after paying for your housing and other essential expenses. The legal aid agency works this out.

Your partner's income, savings and assets count if you live with them. You need to show proof of your income and savings to your adviser. For example, bank statements.

Savings and other assets

You cannot get legal aid if you have £8,000 or more in savings or other assets.

Anything of value, such as property, cars or jewellery counts as assets and are included in working out if you should get legal aid.

The home you live in

You might not get legal aid if you have too much equity in your property.

Equity is the money you'd get after selling your home and paying off your mortgage and secured debts.

Secured debts are loans that are registered on your home.

Not all equity counts. £100,000 of equity in your home is ignored. £200,000 is ignored if you're facing repossession for mortgage arears.

The legal aid agency might ask you to pay back some of the cost if you get to keep your home. But you do not normally have to do this until your home is sold.

Check if you can get legal aid on GOV.UK