About Wiltshire Law Centre
The Wiltshire Law Centre is a registered charity, established in 1981 providing free, independent legal advice in Welfare Benefits, Housing and Debt to people on low incomes. In January 2010 we also started to provide free Discrimination advice.
We deal with the whole range of benefits such as Child Tax Credits, Working Tax Credits, Employment Support Allowance, Incapacity Benefit and Disability Living Allowance. We also assist with Social Security appeals, representation at tribunals and court hearings.
We deal with a wide range of housing issues for Council tenants and private tenants. Problems with housing associations, housing benefit queries and claims, issues with landlords regarding quality of accommodation especially for special needs clients, mortgage arrears and repossession are all dealt with at the Law Centre.
We offer advice to clients on all aspects of debt including Council Tax arrears and dealing with bailiffs. We can help clients petition for bankruptcy and apply for Debt Relief Orders.
Our Welfare Benefits, Housing and Debt service is funded by the Legal Services Commission. This service is only available for clients who are eligible for Legal Aid (see the link to the Legal Aid calculator on our home page). If you are not eligible for our service we will help signpost you to an agency who can help.
Discrimination advice is funded by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and is free to all clients regardless of their income.
We have a contract with Swindon Borough Council to assist Swindon residents at court facing repossesion hearings.
We also have a grant from the Community Foundation for Wiltshire & Swindon that assists greatly with our staff training costs
We are keen to expand our provision of services to the people of Swindon and Wiltshire as a whole. In certain circumstances we can visit clients at home.
The Law Centre opened over 1400 individual client case files in the period April 2009 to March 2010. We also assisted many more clients over the telephone.
We currently have 7 advisors with at least two in each area of law. Our advisors have over 50 years experience between them and include a solicitor, a barrister and 5 very experienced caseworkers.
If you would like to support our work by becoming a Trustee and joining our voluntary management committee, or by MAKING A DONATION, please call us on 01793 486926 or email us at info@wiltslawcentre.co.uk
History of the Wiltshire Law Centre