Renting property can have its ups and downs and if you rent a variety of places for long enough you will surely experience a good few of them. Everything’s fine when it’s the ups you’re experiencing, but when it’s the downs we often need a bit of professional legal advice to guide us through whatever difficulties we are facing, be they bad housing conditions or a law-breaking landlord. There are other places where tenants can get good advice which we will cover in a future blog, but listed below are the best three free places you can go for advice with your tenancy problems.
The Citizens Advice Bureau
The main legal charity organisation in the UK is the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) and most cities and even large towns usually have an office somewhere you can visit. They do cover a lot of different issues such as debt advice, consumer law and other issues such as benefits, so you should call your nearest office ahead of your visit to ensure they have a housing law specialist on site to help you.
If they don’t have someone there, then they can identify their closest housing law specialist and make arrangements for you to meet them at a time convenient for both of you. You can also go online and peruse the Citizens Advice Bureau’s housing advice.
Shelter – The Housing and Homelessness Charity
Shelter is an organisation that helps millions of people every year who are struggling to solve issues regarding bad housing, bad landlords and even homelessness. They are the top Housing Law charity and they offer advice and support as well as providing several legal services which can help tenants sort out any problems they are having with either their landlords or the premises they are renting.
They have actually been operating around the UK for fifty years now, having been established in 1966 and are funded by donations and fund-raising campaigns, 80% of which they say is spent directly on helping people. They have separate dedicated parts of their website for tenants renting in England, Wales and Scotland, plus they provide face-to-face advice services as well having a hot line you can call (0808 800 4444). Check out the Shelter online advice guide for more information.
Speak to Your Local Authority
Your local authority is the council that represents the area you are living in. You can contact them for housing advice as they have a statutory duty to provide advice and help to people in their area regarding issues such as tenant harassment or the threat of homelessness. Many of the larger local authorities will even have dedicated Tenancy Relations Officers (TROs) who specialise in housing advice for people renting from either private landlords or through letting agents.
You can identify your local council here at the UK Government’s local authority finder and then you simply need to contact them to see if they have the specialists to help on site or where you can go otherwise. Remember, areas with smaller councils or rural places where there isn’t a lot of rented property will be unlikely to have any TROs on site, but they can still advise you with regards who to talk to next.
