About Civil Help

Civil Help is a free, independent information resource designed to help people and small businesses in the United Kingdom understand their rights, find the correct processes, and take practical next steps.

What we cover

We provide guidance across 19 major areas of UK public information:

Benefits & Support — Universal Credit, PIP, council tax support, cost of living help, and emergency assistance.
Complaints & Ombudsmen — How to complain, escalate disputes, and reach the right ombudsman or regulator.
Housing & Renting — Tenancy rights, deposits, repairs, eviction notices, and homelessness support.
Employment Rights — Pay, holiday, redundancy, dismissal, grievances, and tribunal basics.
Business Compliance — Data protection, Companies House, employment records, and small business obligations.
Grants & Funding — Business grants, local authority funding, startup support, and application guidance.
Immigration & Visas — Work visas, family routes, settlement, sponsorship, and right to work checks.
Care & Later Life — Social care, care fees, carers support, lasting power of attorney, and later life planning.
Debt & Money Problems — Breathing space, debt relief orders, bailiffs, priority debts, credit disputes, and money advice.
Family & Relationships — Divorce, child maintenance, child arrangements, domestic abuse protection, and cohabitation rights.
Victims of Crime — CICA compensation, restraining orders, Victims' Code rights, fraud recovery, and scam reimbursement.
Wills, Probate & Inheritance — Making a will, intestacy rules, probate process, inheritance tax, and contested wills.
Health & NHS — NHS rights, GP access, hospital treatment, prescription costs, and patient complaints.
Education & Schools — School admissions, SEN/EHCP, exclusions, university complaints, and parental rights.
Driving & Vehicles — Driving licences, MOT, insurance, penalty points, fixed penalty notices, and vehicle complaints.
Travel & Consumer — Flight delays (UK261), package holidays, refunds, hotel disputes, and consumer rights abroad.
Digital Rights — Online safety, data protection, social media complaints, online scams, and digital privacy.
Mental Health Law — Mental Health Act sectioning, capacity, advocacy, hospital treatment, and tribunal appeals.
Veterans & Armed Forces — Armed Forces Compensation, war pensions, veterans housing, mental health support, and resettlement.

What Civil Help is not

Civil Help is not a law firm, government website, regulator, or ombudsman. We do not provide personalised legal advice, and we are not affiliated with any government department or public body. Our content is informational guidance designed to help you understand your options and find the right next step.

Our approach

We believe that everyone should be able to understand their rights and options in plain English. Our guides are written to be practical, clear, and action-oriented. Where relevant, we link to official government resources and regulatory bodies so you can verify information and take action.

Editorial process

Every Civil Help page goes through a defined process before publication and on review:

Primary-source research. Each guide is researched directly from UK legislation, statutory instruments, official codes of practice, regulator guidance, and ombudsman scheme rules — not aggregated from secondary sources.
Fact-checking against named bodies. Figures, deadlines, and processes are verified against the body that operates them — for example, GOV.UK and DWP for benefits, HMRC for tax, the FCA and Financial Ombudsman Service for financial services, ACAS for employment disputes, the ICO for data protection, the Home Office and UKVI for immigration, the Solicitors Regulation Authority and Legal Ombudsman for legal services.
Plain-English review. Drafts are rewritten to remove jargon and to explain UK statutory concepts in language a non-specialist can act on.
Cross-checking against advisory bodies. Where guidance from independent advisory organisations is the practical standard — Citizens Advice, Shelter, ACAS, the Money and Pensions Service, MoneySavingExpert charity tools, Age UK, MIND, Refugee Council — we cross-check our position against theirs and note where it diverges.
Disclaimers on regulated topics. Immigration, financial, legal, and medical content carries a disclaimer telling readers when to seek regulated advice.
Periodic re-review. Every guide carries a visible last-reviewed date and a target next-review date. Guides covering rates that change each April (NMW, SSP, benefit rates, tax thresholds) are reviewed annually as a hard deadline.

Accuracy, updates, and corrections

We strive to keep our information accurate and up to date. However, laws, regulations, benefit rates, and processes change regularly. We include review dates on our guides so you can see when they were last checked. For the most current information, always check the relevant official source linked from each guide.

If you spot an error, an outdated figure, a broken link, or a policy change we have not yet reflected, please tell us. We treat correction requests as a priority and aim to update the live guide within 14 days, with a note in our changelog.