The Free legal advice service provided by Community can help members and their families in any number of ways. Here are some recent success stories.
The member was contacted by a debt recovery agency regarding an amount of money he allegedly owed from the mid 1990s. He had no idea at all as to the source of the alleged debt. He was very concerned about this and his opponents adopted a very aggressive attitude towards him.
FLAS advised the member about the weakness of his opponents claim against him, in particular the rules of relevant time limits and their unacceptable conduct in pursuing him.
Several letters were drafted on behalf of the member to his opponents, resulting in them dropping their ill-founded claim against him.
This member was experiencing difficulties in recovering his deposit from his landlord regarding a rented property that he was no longer living at. English was not the member’s first language and it was suspected that that was being used against him in withholding the return of his deposit without any good reason.
The member was given advice and guidance throughout, including the landlord’s legal obligation to have placed his deposit in the Deposit Protection Scheme. After several weeks of persistence and FLAS working with the member, the landlord returned the deposit to the member.
This member was being chased by a mail order company for charges applied to an account that had previously been cancelled by her some time ago.
FLAS provided the member with telephone advice about how she should deal with the unjustified demands of the mail order company. Consequently, letters followed to the mail order company from the member, stressing both and their wholly unacceptable behaviour in pursuing an alleged debt that they had not right to do so and the member’s position in law in general. The matter was dropped by the mail order company shortly thereafter.