Gaps in housing legal aid could create a more uneven disputes system under the Renters Rights Act, with the Law Society warning that 41% of people in England and Wales do not have a housing legal aid provider in their area. The warning is framed around tenant access to justice, but landlords should pay attention too.

Housing advice gaps expose wider court pressure

The Law Society said legal aid can make the difference between home and homelessness, and argued that rights under the new tenancy regime will mean little if tenants cannot get advice where landlords break the rules. It also warned that years of underfunding have left large parts of the country without local provision.

Mark Evans, president of the Law Society of England and Wales, said the end of no-fault evictions may level the playing field in law, but those rights will only be real if free legal advice is available where landlords fail to comply with the Act.

He added that without regular long-term investment, more local legal aid services could disappear.

This follows Residential Landlord’s February report on Law Society calls for court funding, which highlighted how fragile the possession system already looked before the Renters Rights Act took effect. It also sits alongside Residential Landlord’s coverage of the final Section 21 rush, which showed how many landlords tried to act before the old route closed.

For landlords, the practical concern is straightforward. If the new system expands formal challenges and advice demand without fixing court capacity, disputes may take longer and cost more for everyone involved. Better tenant advice is not the problem in itself. The problem is an unbalanced rollout where new rights are funded more clearly than the machinery needed to resolve contested cases quickly.

Why procedure now matters more for landlords

Landlords should expect a more procedural environment from this point on, especially where rent challenges, possession cases or compliance disputes arise. Good paperwork, clean evidence trails and prompt repairs matter more than ever when the margin for error has narrowed.

• Keep compliance records organised and ready to produce quickly
• Expect longer lead times where disputes move into formal channels
• Assume poorly documented cases will now be harder to defend

The wider justice backdrop is set out on the Law Society’s legal aid campaign and resource page, which tracks the loss of local advice provision and the funding debate behind it.

Opinion

No serious landlord should object to clear advice or fair process. But a system that widens rights without fixing court speed, local advice gaps and case handling will produce more friction, not less. The danger is that compliant landlords still end up stuck in a slower, costlier dispute process that government was warned about months ago.