How ordinary people are locked out of fairness in debt, eviction, and financial exploitation disputes
When people think of “justice” in the United Kingdom, they often imagine a level playing field: an impartial judge, clear rules, and everyone getting a fair hearing.
It’s a comforting picture — but for many facing debt collection, eviction, or financial exploitation, it’s a fiction.
In civil law — the part of the system that deals with everyday harms, money, and property — the right to fairness increasingly depends on your income, literacy, and emotional resilience.
The law still speaks of access to justice. In practice, it has become a privilege reserved for those who can afford representation or bear the bureaucratic weight of self-defence.
1. A Right in Theory, Not in Practice
Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights promises everyone a fair and public hearing.
But fairness on paper means little when the tools to use that right have been taken away.
Since the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO), civil legal aid has been slashed.
What was once a national safety net — ensuring no one faced eviction or predatory lenders alone — has become a patchwork of exceptions:
- Debt: Only covered if your home is at risk.
- Eviction: Only funded when you’re already in court.
- Financial exploitation or mis-selling: Almost never covered.
- Family law: Only if you can prove domestic abuse.
Legal aid deserts now stretch across England and Wales.
In many counties, there are no local legal aid housing or welfare solicitors at all.
2. The Litigant in Person Era
The cuts didn’t stop disputes — they simply shifted the burden onto ordinary people.
Tens of thousands now act as Litigants in Person (LIPs), forced to navigate complex rules without legal training.
Judges do their best to assist, but civil procedure remains a maze of Latin terminology, strict deadlines, and opaque forms.
Missing a step can mean losing a case — even when you’re right on the facts.
LIPs describe feeling “invisible”, “humiliated”, and “talked over”.
Many give up or accept unfair settlements simply to end the stress.
The Civil Justice Council warned in 2021 that unrepresented parties face “significant and systemic disadvantage.”
The Bach Commission called access to justice “a fundamental constitutional right now denied to millions.”
3. Debt and Eviction: Everyday Injustice
In debt recovery, creditors often rely on automated claims filed in bulk.
Many people never see the paperwork until a County Court Judgment (CCJ) lands on their credit file — sometimes entered by default because they didn’t understand or even receive the claim.
In housing, last-minute “duty desks” provide help at court doors — a sticking plaster on a systemic wound.
A solicitor might meet a tenant minutes before their hearing, with no time to gather evidence of disrepair, discrimination, or benefit delays.
Judges can adjourn or pause cases, but the imbalance is structural: one side arrives with a file and a lawyer; the other with a bag of letters and a panic attack.
4. Financial Exploitation: Invisible Harms
Financial exploitation — whether by predatory lending, mis-sold products, or unfair treatment of vulnerable consumers — sits in a legal no-man’s land.
Victims are told to complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which is free and well-intentioned, but limited.
The FOS can’t hold oral hearings, can’t cross-examine witnesses, and can’t compel systemic reform.
When firms ignore decisions, consumers must go back to court — the very arena they couldn’t afford to enter in the first place.
This gap leaves survivors of economic abuse, coercive lending, and discriminatory treatment effectively unprotected, even though regulators like the FCA and FOS recognise such harms in principle.
5. The Emotional Cost of “Self-Representation”
The justice gap isn’t just financial — it’s emotional.
People facing eviction or debt collection are often traumatised, bereaved, disabled, or managing mental-health crises.
Yet the system expects them to argue case law, quote legislation, and keep composure in adversarial settings designed for professionals.
Few civil courts operate trauma-informed practices.
Requests for “reasonable adjustments” under the Equality Act 2010 are inconsistently handled.
In many hearings, the process itself becomes a source of harm.
6. The Myth of Simplicity
Government policy often describes small claims and tribunal routes as “accessible.”
But “simple” online claim forms mask deep inequality:
- Claimants must upload precise evidence, cite contract terms, and meet time limits.
- Respondents must draft coherent defences and understand procedural orders.
Without legal training, most users are guessing their way through — and the court has limited capacity to guide them.
7. When the System Pretends to Be Fair
Formal fairness — equal rules for all — isn’t real fairness when the rules are written for lawyers.
As Lord Dyson once observed, “There is a difference between being allowed to participate and being able to participate meaningfully.”
That’s the heart of the problem: the UK civil justice system is procedurally equal, but substantively unequal.
A wealthy claimant and a poor defendant technically get the same court.
But one arrives with counsel, case law, and confidence; the other with anxiety and no representation.
The outcome is often pre-written in power dynamics, not law.
8. A Justice System for the Resilient
The courts increasingly serve those who can:
- Pay for advice,
- Understand paperwork,
- Communicate fluently,
- Stay calm under pressure, and
- Take days off work without losing income.
Everyone else — the single parent, the disabled tenant, the exploited borrower — must fight uphill simply to be heard.
9. What Genuine Fairness Would Look Like
A fair civil justice system is not utopian. It’s practical:
- Early-stage legal advice for all: Before problems escalate into crisis.
- Restored legal aid for core life issues: home, livelihood, dignity.
- Simplified, trauma-informed procedures: Language that humans can understand.
- Expanded duty and advice schemes: Not just at court doors, but at the first letter of threat.
- Accountability for power imbalances: Regulators and courts recognising the role of coercion, discrimination, and vulnerability in civil harm.
These are not luxuries. They are the foundation of a democratic rule of law.
10. The Truth Beneath the Paper Rights
The UK still calls itself a nation of laws.
But if fairness is available only to the literate, the confident, and the solvent, then we have quietly redefined justice as a market good — not a public right.
Civil justice is where ordinary lives intersect with the law: homes, debts, safety, dignity.
When those arenas become inaccessible, the promise of equality before the law collapses in practice.
It’s time to restore the missing half of the justice system — not just the right to be heard, but the ability to be heard meaningfully.
Justice should not depend on how much you can pay, how well you can write, or how calm you can stay under pressure.
It should depend on one thing only: the truth of your case.
Until that becomes reality, the civil courts of the United Kingdom will remain fair in name, and unequal in effect.
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