Legal Aid is supposed to be available for homeless people who need assistance in refusal by a local authority to provide them with accommodation which they are entitled to. 

The problem with the means assessment system is that a homeless person who is not receiving a passported benefit or an extremely low wage is likely to be ineligible for assistance. This is because they do not have any housing costs to be deducted from their income when calculating their disposable income.  If they had temporary accommodation which they were liable to pay rent for this rent could be taken into account but once they are homeless there is no housing cost and their disposable income goes up to a level which will often take them over the limit of £733.00 per month. 

To illustrate this; I was approached recently by a woman who had just been evicted from her temporary accommodation along with her daughter because the council had found her to be intentionally homeless. She needed help challenging this decision. Unfortunately, if she had come to see me before her temporary accommodation was cancelled she would have been eligible but once she had been evicted her wages and tax credits left her with a  monthly disposable income of £1,286.32. This took her over the eligibility limit by £553.33 which was less than her rent had been. This has the absurd effect that someone who has no accommodation and is therefore in more pressing need for the assistance is unable to get the assistance which they would have got before she lost her temporary accommodation. 

I wondered if there might be some way around this problem. I sent an email to the Legal Aid Agency’s Contact Civil Team which read:

I have recently been asked to help a homeless single parent. Who had been evicted from her temporary accommodationprovided by the council and is staying with a friend

She is working in a low paid job and would have been eligible for assistance under Legal Help up to the point when she was evicted from her temporary accommodation. However at that point she ceased to have any housing costs. This meant that the deductions from her income were reduced and her disposable income was increased above the eligibility limit.

The effect of the above is that whilst the client would have been eligible for assistance up to the point when she was evicted from her temporary accommodation she was not eligible once she had actually been evicted. I trust that you will agree that it cannot have been the intention of those who prepared the eligibility rules to exclude someone as a result of their need for assistance becoming more acute as in this case and that they should be penalised for having no accommodation which was the reason they sought assistance. Please can you let me know if there is any way in which a provider can assist a homeless person such as this under the Legal Help scheme or why it is considered appropriate for them not to receive assistance.

I received the following response. 

Legal aid is available to fund cases that are within the scope of the civil scheme (as per LASPO Act), for those who are financially eligible and whose case satisfies the merits test.  The means test is laid down in the regulations to determine who is financially eligible for funding; the limited circumstances where a waiver applies are set out in regulations 9-12 of the Civil Legal Aid (Financial Resources and Payment for Services) Regulations 2013, a waiver does not appear to be applicable in this case . You have indicated your concern that the individual in question does not qualify within the income limit based on her current income and outgoings.  Your concern is noted. With any scheme which assists vulnerable people, there will appear to be ‘hard cases’ at the margin.

This response can be summarised as confirming that there is no way round the fact that someone can lose their entitlement to Legal Aid based on their means as a result of losing their temporary accommodation. It is good to know that my concern has been noted by the Legal Aid Agency but disappointing that it is not shared. I guess its not the responsibility of staff at Contact Civil to agitate for defects in system to be repaired.

I think that there is a clear need here for the means test rules to be amended so as to allow people who have no accommodation to avoid being penalised for having no housing costs. This could be achieved by treating such people in the same way that people on passported benefits are treated. The Legal Help form could ask whether the applicant is on a passported benefit and/or has no accommodation of their own. 

This question came up last week when I was going through the bank statement of a new client whom I proposed to advise and assist under the Legal Help Scheme. She was receiving Income Support and entitled to be treated as receiving a passported benefit for Legal Aid purposes.

What worried me when going through the bank statement was that whilst there was clear evidence of payment in of Income Support there were other payments in such as child support and some other payments. I was not sure how high the level of this additional income would have to be before somebody at the Legal Aid Agency might refuse payment for the work on this case because I was said to have failed to adequately consider whether the client was property in receipt of Income Support.

I found an explanation what properly in receipt of a passported benefit means at paragraph 4 on page 12 of the Legal Aid Agency’s Means Assessment Guidance. This states:-

The passporting benefit must be currently in payment (e.g. the individual will not be passported if the benefit claim is still being processed or if payments are suspended pending a fraud investigation) and the individual must be legally entitled to the payment. If the passporting benefit is in payment but there is a suspicion that an individual may not be “properly” in receipt—e.g. representations have been made against the individual’s means or the individual’s own declarations have indicated that relevant facts such as a partner, employment, sources of income and capital etc. have not been advised to the benefit office—their legal aid claim will not be passported.

The answer would therefore appear to be whether the information provided by the client gives rise to a suspicion that they are not entitled to the passported benefit which they are receiving. Following the withdrawal of Legal Aid for Welfare Benefits work the Legal Aid Agency can not expect most of us to have a specialist eye for possible non entitlement. I think therefore that as long was we can record that we have no suspicion that the information provided by the client means that they are not entitled to the passported benefit which they are receiving we should not be at risk of not getting paid.

I think that the danger signs when looking at the bank statements or other information provided by the client will be situations such as:-

• The client’s net income for the month up to the date when they sign the Legal Help is more than the net income limit for non passported benefits  – ie £733.00.
• The client’s wages are more than the Universal Credit Work Allowances.

This is not meant to be definitive advice on this question. I would welcome any comments on here or by email to wflack63@gmail.com If anyone would like to correct what I have said or add to it.

I have had a list of solicitors which I give to people whose cases I can’t take for a while. I have now put it on the site .  You can access it via the link at the top of the page.

I hope to add to the list so please let me know the contact details of anyone you think should be added. I can amend the list to include organisations outside London if I get the details.

At the bottom of the page is a link to the list as a Google Document which you should be able to print or copy. Please let me know if you can’t.

Here is a very valuable document for anyone who like me regularly issues homelessness appeals in the Central London County Court pursuant to Section 204 of the Housing Act 1996.

For years I have had to worry about ensuring that hard copies of the Court papers were received at the Court within 21 days of the date when the Section 202 Review decision letter was received. That now appears to be a thing of the past. Here is the letter as a PDF.

I am extremely grateful to Mrs Begum at the Court for providing a very detailed response to my queries about whether Appellant Notices and supporting documents can be sent to the Court by email as PDFs or whether it is still necessary for hard copies to be sent to the Court. As can be seen from her letter of 15 January, the answer is that they can as long as you have a PBA Account with HM Courts & Tribunal Service for paying the fee.

So far there has only been limited guidance available from the Courts as to what can and can’t be issued digitally. Please leave a comment if you are aware of any other guidance. All I had been able to find was the Courts Email Guidance. The attached letter was sent after I had to complain after Central London County Court initially accepted and then sent back an Appeal which I had issued by sending papers by email only. I had been sending Application Notice in this way and having them issued without problems.. My complaint led to the Court agreeing to issue my appeal. As part of the complaint I asked for clarification of the Court’s approach.

When I wrote to the Court I referred them to the  Bryan McGuire QC memorial lecture on homelessness given by HHJ Jan Luba QC in April 2017 (Link here) which set out at paragraph 111 a number of very useful Pointers For Appellants. These included a request to cut down on paper work and help save the rain forests. I asked for guidance on those like me who act for appellants might take up the call. I have had a further response from HHJ Luba QC in which he reminds me that Ms Begum as a court official should not be treated as stating what the actual Court procedure is but only as setting her understanding of it. He also suggested that at some point in the future the Courts will be accepting Appeal Bundles in digital format. I think that they should have started doing this some years ago but I am very glad that they are at least allowing us to issue by email.

Since receiving the above letter I have set another appeal to Central London County Court for issue without sending any paper copies. I sent an email to the address: enquiries@centrallondon.countycourt.gsi.gov.uk  which set out the following text: