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Giving housing advice is not only important but given the seriousness of the tenants predicament vital that it is given by somebody with the required experience and often essential that it is given swiftly. Three of these situations often arise. 1.A tenant contacts you to say that bailiffs are evicting them the very next day. 2.A homeless person has been refused accommodation by the Local Authority and have only a few days left to appeal that decision. 3. A tenant brings in Possession proceedings that are due to be heard a few days later in the County Court. All these types of case crop up on a daily basis in a Housing Solicitors office. They are cases where you have to drop everything to deal with the emergency. They are so serious because in the event of failure to obtain a successful outcome you will have effectively made somebody street homeless. Substantial amounts of work have to be done, paperwork reviewed and documents such as witness statements, pleadings and Appeals drafted. To be honest a telephone advice line cannot deal with any of these situations. Neither can a £5million innovation budget.
What we need is committed lawyers who are prepared to work their socks off, often late into the night who are frankly paid peanuts for extremely complex work where the law is ever changing and the consequences of failure dire.