Housing Legal Aid expansion –a small but hopeful step in the right direction?

Since 2018, Suffolk Law Centre has run a housing legal aid service from its offices in Ipswich, covering Suffolk and, when possible, North Essex housing cases in disrepair, possession, illegal eviction, homelessness challenges and housing related harassment. Prior to 2018 Suffolk was without legal aid housing provision and the Law Society has recognised North Essex as a housing legal aid desert since 2018. The Law Society map below illustrates the chronic shortage of housing legal aid provision across East Anglia, the only housing legal aid providers from south Essex to north Norfolk are single offices at Suffolk Law Centre and Shelter Norwich.

Both housing legal aid services are regularly over-subscribed by those with housing advice needs, in that context a key service to prevent homelessness is the Housing Possession Court Duty Scheme (HPCDS). The schemes are funded by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) across the country to provide non means tested advice and representation at court on the day of a possession hearing for anyone facing possession of a residential property. In Suffolk and North Essex only one county court benefits from this LAA funded service, Bury St Edmunds. At both Chelmsford and Ipswich County Courts, the possession listing days duty advice services are provided by independent volunteer schemes. These are vanishingly rare across England as only six courts have these independent schemes. At Bury St Edmunds County Court, defendants facing possession cases or applicants to suspend warrants of eviction do benefit fromthe LAA funded scheme and since August 2020, that service has been provided as part of SLC’s housing legal aid provision. Even since the drop off in cases during the covid pandemic, SLC have advised and represented over 70 clients at Bury St Edmunds and assisted in preventing or delaying possession for many vulnerable clients who otherwise would not have received assistance.

2023 will see major changes to the LAA housing duty scheme as part of the LAA’s professed commitment to early advice. Early legal advice was largely removed from legal aid provision under LASPO 2012. The negative impact of this on access to justice has been widely recognised and finally a review by the LAA in 2019 made a commitment to pilot its reintroduction. Three years later, a pilot in Manchester and Middlesborough began to reintroduce early legal advice in housing and welfare benefits, due to run until 2024, it would see a trial expansion of legal aid funding in this area.

For the housing possession duty scheme the introduction of an expanded early advice service is due to start in Autumn 2023 under the new Housing Loss Prevention Advice Scheme (HLPAS), an acronym confusingly close to that of the Housing Law Practitioners Association (HLPA) but completely unrelated. HLPAS has two stages, it retains at stage 2 as in-court duty scheme advice service comparable to the existing HPCDS. The novelty of the scheme comes at stage 1 which would allow legal aid providers to provide early legal advice on housing, welfare benefits and debt issues under LAA legal help funding if they are facing possession proceedings or at risk of loss of their home. This help would be engaged from the point at which a client received written evidence of the risk of possession proceedings and, like the in-court scheme, this assistance will not be means tested, opening up advice and advocacy to a much wider scope of potential clients than exists under the strict financial eligibility criteria currently in place from legal aid.

Tenders were submitted to run these schemes in December 2022 and, if successful, new providers will be able to provide this early advice to anyone across Suffolk, including for those attending courts without an LAA funded scheme.

The scheme has been welcomed by many as a rare extension of the scope of legal aid services given the deleterious impact of the removal from scope of legal aid of most benefits and debt advice. However, concerns have already been raised over fees (a perennial problem for legal aid providers given that fee rates have not increased since 2000) and limitations to the extent of the benefits and debt work possible, at this stage that work is due to cease at any final hearing whether the benefits and debt work has resolved the client’s issues or not.

However, despite these concerns, early advice remains a critical access to justice issue. Helping clients resolve their issues before they become intractable and avoiding costly and stressful court processes on both sides. In our housing legal aid work at SLC we see the effects of unresolved problems and the lack of legal aid in housing every day without the funding to address them all. While the HLPAS scheme is only a small weapon in our armoury, it has some potential to help clients avoid the stress of attending court and potential eviction. Much more needs to be done, and the profession is awaiting with some hope and a healthy dose of cynicism the review of sustainability of legal aid finally scheduled by the LAA for this year. There are much deeper and more concerning problems with the sustainability of housing legal aid than can be addressed by the introduction of the HLPAS scheme, but it is a (very small) step in the right direction to expanding legal aid and Suffolk Law Centre will be embracing all the opportunities available to improve services to vulnerable clients facing life-changing housing issues.

By Lucy Davies Acting Housing Legal Aid Supervisor, Suffolk Law Centre

46A St. Matthews Street, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP1 3EP

Tel: 01473 408111 web: www.iscre.org.uk

Email: office@suffolklawcentre.org.uk

Suffolk & North Essex Law Society