We aim to help people to live safely in their homes. We specialise in cases in cases involving homelessness, possession, and eviction.

We aim to provide support to other agencies even when we cannot take on the case. That support may be telephone advice to assist the referral agency in resolving the problem, or help in finding other sources of advice from groups such as the Southwark Housing Lawyers Group, the Lewisham Housing Lawyers Group or the Housing and Immigration Group.

We hold a Legal Aid contract to provide the County Court Duty Scheme at Clerkenwell County Court. A member of our housing team attends to support tenants from Lambeth and Southwark who are not represented.

Migrant Housing project.

Trust for London provides funding to help us take cases for vulnerable migrants including people with No Recourse to Public Funds

Private Renters Project

We have funding from Urban Health to provide legal advice for private tenants with issues such as illegal eviction and disrepair.

Calling all private renters

  • Southwark Law Centre in partnership with Citizens Advice Southwark are working together to provide support for private renters.
  • This will include free “Know your Housing Rights” seminars and a website to address the issues that people renting in the private sector face.
  • The input from the public is crucial to help us understand how we can work together to address these problems and improve the situation for private renters in the borough.
  • Please help us by completing this short survey
  • Survey in English: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/HJGKWVP
  • Survey in Spanish: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/DLCFNNC
  • Survey in Portuguese: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/CLSD3XB

Examples of cases we may take on

  • Possession cases including applications to suspend a Warrant
  • Unfavourable decisions made against a homeless applicant, including reviews and appeals
  • Landlord harassment, and unlawful evictions
  • Clients who are without any or any adequate accommodation and do not have access to mainstream housing for example because of their immigration status

Cases that we cannot deal with

  • Landlords – We do not advise Landlords.
  • Right to Buy
  • Leaseholders
  • Mortgage possession cases
  • Most neighbour disputes: but we may act for clients who need to be rehoused because of harassment

Our Team

Housing Team

Southwark Homeless Forum

We work in partnership with Southwark council to facilitate meetings of agencies working to prevent homelessness

Our Organisation

We are a registered charity and are governed by a trustee board of local residents.
Please click here to view our 2021 Annual Report
please click here to view our Audited Reports for the Year Ended March 31st 2021
To view our Privacy Policy click here.
Company registration number: 1418763 • Charity registration number: 277927
Office of the Immigration Service Commissioners reference is N201000009