Is civil legal assistance available in mortgage rights cases?

Legal aid is available. We grant most applications for legal aid for these cases. Most people don't pay, or pay very little, towards their legal aid. The Scottish Legal Aid Board does not give legal advice. If you want to find a legal aid solicitor see the quick links box above.

We grant more than 80% of applications for legal aid for mortgage rights and repossession cases.

Some media reports have suggested that even if you get legal aid for cases such as these, you could end up owing the Board thousands of pounds or even losing your house to pay a debt to the Board.

Depending on your income and capital, and on whether you win your case, you could have to pay something towards your legal aid – but you certainly won’t have to sell your house to do so.

Contributions

You may have to pay a contribution – you can normally do this in instalments over as much as 48 months (and if you have difficulty in paying over this period, we may be able to arrange another payment schedule with you). Use our eligibility estimators to get an idea of the maximum contribution you might have to pay.

If we grant legal aid, we will tell you the maximum contribution you will have to pay. But if your solicitor estimates the case is likely to cost less than this, we can initially limit the contribution you pay to the amount they estimate.  (Although if the case ends up costing more than the estimate, you may have to pay the full amount we originally assessed you had to pay.)

If you are successful in your case, you may have to pay something towards the cost of the case from the property that you manage to keep (this is sometimes called clawback).  However, this only happens in about half the cases. If you do have to pay clawback, the average cost is around £200 for advice and assistance and £400 for civil legal aid.

You don’t have to pay immediately – you can put it off until you sell the house (even if you don't sell it for many years) by granting a standard security in favour of the Board or you can pay in instalments. You will also have to pay interest on the amount due. No one has ever had to sell their house to pay the debt to the Board – and without legal aid they would probably have lost title to the property.

Links to more advice

If you need advice about mortgage rights or repossessions, but don't want to consult a solicitor at this stage, there are various other organisations that may be able to offer you some help. We give some links below to debt advice available on some other websites.