Overview
Legal Aid may be available for civil cases including things like debt, family or housing problems.
You might be able to get legal aid for problems like:
- homelessness, eviction, losing your home, or serious disrepair
- protecting yourself or a child from abuse or harassment, for example domestic abuse or forced marriage
- poor quality care you or a family member are getting due to age, disability or special educational needs
- needing advice on finances, children or divorce if you’ve been in an abusive relationship
- a child in your family being at risk of being taken into care
- family mediation, for example if you’re deciding on child arrangements
- discrimination
- challenging the way the government has made a decision about you
- seeking asylum or if you’ve been the victim of human trafficking
- needing advice if a family member’s death is going to a coroner’s inquest
Ashford Advice have a legal aid contract for housing, there are a number of firms offering legal aid for other matters, see https://ashfordadvice.org/solicitors.
We are not able to offer criminal legal aid your solicitor will check your eligibility and apply on your behalf
Eligibility for Legal Aid
To get legal aid, you usually need to show you cannot afford to pay for legal costs and your problem is serious. If you receive certain benefits you may be passported through the income means test, but you must still have less than £8000 in disposable capital
Passporting benefits include:
- income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
- Income Support (IS)
- income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
- Universal Credit (UC)
- Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit (GC)
Your financial situation is not taken into account for cases about:
- mental health tribunals
- children in care
- your child being abducted
You may also have to provide evidence about your problem, for example in a divorce case by providing a court order or GP letter showing that you or your child have been a victim of abuse.
Check if you qualify for legal aid to get help with civil cases.
There is advice about who qualifies for Criminal Legal Aid on the GOV.UK website
Legal Aid for Housing matters
If you would like legal aid for housing matters, Ashford Advice may be able to assist you, the most common housing problems we can 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.
Please download our Legal Aid Eligibility Forms, complete them and email or send it to us. Our housing solicitor will contact you to make an appointment
It will also be helpful if you complete the personal budget form:-
email: contact@ashfordadvice.org
post: Seabrooke House, Church Road, Ashford TN23 1RD
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