How Our Content Is Created

Civil Help is committed to providing accurate, practical, and up-to-date information about UK rights, processes, and support options. This page explains how we research, write, and maintain our content.

Sources

All Civil Help guides are based on:

  • Primary legislation — Acts of Parliament published on legislation.gov.uk
  • Official government guidance — GOV.UK, NHS.UK, and devolved government websites
  • Regulatory guidance — published by Ofgem, Ofcom, FCA, ICO, CQC, HSE, and other regulators
  • Ombudsman decisions — published decisions from the Financial Ombudsman Service, PHSO, LGSCO, and others
  • Case law — relevant court and tribunal decisions that clarify how the law applies in practice
  • Expert organisations — Citizens Advice, Shelter, Acas, Age UK, and other authoritative charities

Editorial Process

  1. Research — we identify the topic, gather primary sources, and check for recent legislative or policy changes
  2. Writing — content is drafted in plain English, structured around what users need to know and do, not around legal abstractions
  3. Fact-checking — every factual claim is verified against an official source. Monetary figures are cross-checked against GOV.UK publications
  4. Review — content is reviewed for accuracy, clarity, completeness, and accessibility before publication
  5. Publication — the guide is published with a "last reviewed" date and tagged with its applicable nation scope

Rates and Figures

UK benefit rates, tax thresholds, and statutory amounts change every April. We maintain a centralised rates file that is verified against GOV.UK each April. When rates change, all guides that reference those figures are updated.

The current rates file was last verified on 24 August 2026 and covers the 2026/27 tax year. The next scheduled review is 6 April 2027.

Verification Standards

For each topic area we verify our position against a defined set of authoritative sources. These are the named documents we treat as binding for accuracy:

  • Benefits and welfare: the relevant DWP regulations and the Decision Makers' Guide; the Universal Credit, PIP, and ESA handbooks; HMRC's tax-credits manual; the published rates schedule on GOV.UK.
  • Employment: the Employment Rights Act 1996, Equality Act 2010, the ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures, the EHRC Code of Practice on Employment, and Employment Tribunal procedure rules.
  • Housing: the Housing Act 1988 and 1985, the Tenant Fees Act 2019, the Renters' Rights Bill / Act, the Homelessness Code of Guidance, and Shelter England's legal guides.
  • Immigration: the Immigration Rules (Appendix-by-Appendix), Home Office modernised guidance for caseworkers, and the published UKVI fees and processing times.
  • Complaints and ombudsmen: each scheme's published rules — FOS DISP, PHSO, LGSCO, Energy Ombudsman, Property Ombudsman, Legal Ombudsman, ICO complaints procedure.
  • Care and later life: the Care Act 2014, the Mental Capacity Act 2005, CHC National Framework, the Office of the Public Guardian guidance, and CQC fundamental standards.
  • Family and victims: the Family Procedure Rules, CMS guidance, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, and the Code of Practice for Victims of Crime.
  • Business compliance: Companies House guidance, HMRC employer handbooks, ICO data protection guidance, HSE guidance, and FCA Handbook (DISP, MIPRU).

When these sources conflict — which is rare but happens, particularly during transitional legislation — we follow the primary statute and note the divergence with the date of the conflict.

Corrections Pledge

If a guide is wrong, we want to fix it. Our pledge is straightforward:

  • Acknowledge within 3 working days of being notified of an issue through the feedback widget.
  • Correct factual errors within 14 days for active legislative or rate issues; sooner where the error could materially mislead someone.
  • Document material changes in our public changelogso readers can see what changed and when.
  • Update review dates when a substantive correction is made, so the published last-reviewed date reflects the most recent verified state.

Errata

Substantive corrections made to published guides. Cosmetic edits and link fixes are not listed here — only changes to figures, statutory references, or the substance of advice.

  • 22 October 2026 — Section 8 grounds, Section 8 notice, Renters' Rights Act and court process guides, and the Section 8 checker. Was: Some pages described Ground 1 (landlord or family moving in) as formerly discretionary, labelled serious anti-social behaviour as Ground 6A and moving in as Ground 1B, described a new "repeated rent arrears" ground that does not exist, said Ground 10 needed arrears at the hearing, and said tenants displaced by a Ground 1A claim got enhanced relocation assistance. The Section 8 checker tested Ground 1 only against the old written-notice condition. Now: Ground 1 has always been a mandatory ground. For private tenancies since 1 May 2026 it needs the current tenancy to have begun at least a year before and the landlord to need the home for themselves or a listed close family member; the old condition (written notice by the start of the tenancy, unless the court dispenses with it, plus previous occupation or need as a home) applies only to notices served before 1 May 2026 and housing association assured tenancies. Ground 1A (sale) also needs the tenancy to have begun at least a year before. Serious anti-social behaviour is Ground 7A. Persistent late payment is the long-standing discretionary Ground 11; there is no separate repeated-arrears ground. Ground 10 needs rent unpaid when court proceedings begin and (unless the court dispenses with the notice) in arrears when the notice was served (Housing Act 1988 Schedule 2, as amended by the Renters' Rights Act 2025 Schedule 1). (factual correction)
  • 22 October 2026 — Section 8 notice, Section 8 grounds, rent arrears, eviction notices, notice periods, possession timeline, court process and Renters' Rights Act guides, the Section 8 checker, the Section 8 defence letter, housing questions, comparisons, journeys and glossary. Was: Many pages said the mandatory rent arrears ground (Ground 8) needed two months' arrears and only 14 days' notice, and gave Section 8 notice periods as two weeks to two months, without saying those were the rules before 1 May 2026. Now: For private tenancies in England since 1 May 2026, Ground 8 needs at least three months' rent unpaid (thirteen weeks if rent is weekly or fortnightly) both when the notice is served and at the hearing, and rent unpaid only because a Universal Credit housing payment has not been paid yet is ignored. The notice period for the rent arrears grounds (8, 10 and 11) is four weeks; across all grounds it runs from immediately (a notice citing the anti-social behaviour Grounds 7A or 14 can give the day it is served) to four months, and where several grounds are cited and neither Ground 7A nor 14 is among them, the longest period applies. The two months / eight weeks threshold and two weeks' notice are stated only for notices served before 1 May 2026 and housing association assured tenancies (Housing Act 1988 s.8(4AA) and Schedule 2 Ground 8, as amended by the Renters' Rights Act 2025; S.I. 2026/421). (factual correction)
  • 22 October 2026 — Section 21 validity checker, gas safety and Section 21 guides, and the gas safety certificate request letter. Was: Pages said that if a landlord had not given the tenant a gas safety certificate before they moved in, the defect could not be cured and any later Section 21 notice was invalid, citing Trecarrell House Ltd v Rouncefield and a County Court case. The letter also cited section 21A of the Housing Act 2004. Now: The Court of Appeal held the opposite in Trecarrell House Ltd v Rouncefield [2020] EWCA Civ 760 (by a majority): a landlord who gave the tenant a copy of the latest gas safety record before or with the Section 21 notice could still serve a valid notice, even if no record was given before the tenant moved in; if the latest record only reached the tenant after the notice, the notice could not be relied on. This only matters for notices served before Section 21 was abolished on 1 May 2026. Section 21A is in the Housing Act 1988 (inserted by the Deregulation Act 2015). (factual correction)
  • 22 October 2026 — Section 21 and eviction guides, the Section 21 vs Section 8 comparison, the Section 21 validity checker, the housing checklists, journeys and glossary, and the deposit, gas safety and Section 8 defence letters. Was: Pages said a possession claim on a Section 21 notice served before 1 May 2026 had to be issued at court by 31 July 2026, and the Section 21 checker asked whether court papers had been issued. Many pages still described Section 21 in the present tense, and the comparison tables gave the minimum Section 21 notice as 4 months. Now: The test is whether the landlord asked the court to issue the claim within the applicable period: generally six months from when the notice was given (for some periodic-tenancy notices, four months from the date specified in the notice), or until 31 July 2026 if that was earlier (Renters' Rights Act 2025, Schedule 6, paragraph 4). A claim asked for in time continues until the proceedings are concluded. No new Section 21 notice can be served for private tenancies in England since 1 May 2026, and the minimum Section 21 notice was two months (Housing Act 1988, section 21). (factual correction)
  • 22 October 2026 — Cost of living, Housing Benefit, Universal Credit housing, benefit cap, Discretionary Housing Payment, support while waiting, budgeting support, Pension Credit and renting guides, their question pages, the ISVA and IDVA referral guide, the benefit cap calculator, the benefit checker, the housing hub, comparisons, journeys and glossary. Was: Pages told readers in England to apply to the Household Support Fund and for Discretionary Housing Payments as if both were still running. Now: The Household Support Fund ended on 31 March 2026, and since 1 April 2026 councils in England run the Crisis and Resilience Fund. Discretionary Housing Payments ended in England on 31 March 2026; help with housing costs there now comes from the council's Housing Payment scheme, for people entitled to Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit. Discretionary Housing Payments continue in Scotland and Wales. (factual correction)
  • 22 October 2026 — /housing-renting (hub questions, also published as structured data) and the Section 21, Section 8, gas safety, electrical safety and homelessness guides. Was: The housing hub said a deposit-protection penalty claim had to be brought within three months of the tenancy ending, made the council's housing duty depend on passing a local connection test, and described Section 21 as a current eviction route. Several guides said no Section 21 notice could be relied on at all, and one guide swapped the possession grounds for moving in (Ground 1) and selling (Ground 1A). Now: The Housing Act 2004 sets no deadline of its own for the penalty claim; the general six-year limit in section 9 of the Limitation Act 1980 is likely to apply. Local connection decides which council helps you (Housing Act 1996, section 198), not whether you are helped. Section 21 ended for private tenancies in England on 1 May 2026; a possession claim the landlord asked the court to issue in time (31 July 2026 at the latest) continues until the proceedings are concluded (Renters' Rights Act 2025, Schedule 6). (factual correction)
  • 22 October 2026 — Leasehold guides (lease extension, Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, leasehold disputes, enfranchisement, ground rent, right to manage), the lease extension questions and the leasehold glossary entries. Was: Several pages said the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 had already introduced 990-year lease extensions, abolished marriage value, banned new leasehold houses and removed the leaseholder's liability for the freeholder's costs. Others said the 2-year ownership rule still applied and that the Right to Manage 50% non-residential limit was not yet in force. Now: As of October 2026 the 990-year term, the abolition of marriage value, the leasehold-house ban and the new enfranchisement and extension costs rules have not been brought into force, so a statutory flat extension still adds 90 years. The 2-year ownership rule was removed from 31 January 2025, and the Right to Manage changes, including the 50% non-residential limit, have applied since 3 March 2025. (factual correction)
  • 22 October 2026 — /benefits-support/benefit-cap, the benefit cap question and the benefit cap calculator. Was: The Universal Credit grace period was described as needing 12 months of continuous employment, as not covering self-employment, and as applied automatically. Now: Under regulation 82 of the Universal Credit Regulations 2013 the test is earnings at or above the threshold in each of the 12 months before you stopped work or your earnings fell, and self-employed earnings count (regulation 52), though Minimum Income Floor earnings do not. GOV.UK says you need to report your last 12 months' earnings when you apply to get the grace period. (factual correction)
  • 22 October 2026 — /tools/mif-calculator, /benefits-support/universal-credit, /benefits-support/universal-credit-self-employed, /benefits-support/move-to-uc-managed-migration and the Minimum Income Floor question pages. Was: The Minimum Income Floor was calculated and described as the National Minimum Wage multiplied by expected weekly hours, with no deduction. That is a gross figure. Now: The Universal Credit Regulations 2013 set the floor as the National Minimum Wage for the claimant's age multiplied by their expected weekly hours, converted to a monthly amount (regulation 90(2)), and then converted to a net amount by deducting such amount for income tax and National Insurance as the Secretary of State considers appropriate (regulation 62(4)(b)). DWP's Advice for Decision Making, Chapter H4, repeats that requirement but does not publish a method, so the calculator now shows the gross threshold, an estimated deduction worked out at the 2026/27 personal allowance, basic rate and employee Class 1 National Insurance rate, and the resulting net floor, labelled as an estimate that may differ from DWP's figure. At 35 hours on the age 21 and over rate, the gross calculation overstated the floor by about £246 a month on that estimate, which overstated the earnings a claimant is treated as having and so understated the award. Statements in three Universal Credit guides and in the Q&A that described the floor as the minimum wage multiplied by 35 hours, with no deduction, now say that the floor is after a deduction for tax and National Insurance, and an illustrative example quoting a floor of £1,350 a month has been removed. (factual correction)
  • 22 October 2026 — /benefits-support/two-child-limit, /tools/two-child-checker, /tools/uc-estimator, the Housing Benefit, Child Benefit, Scottish Child Payment and Universal Credit guides, the Healthy Start question page, the Benefit Cap glossary entry, and two-child limit references in the glossary and Q&A. Was: The site described the two-child limit as being in force: the child element of Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit restricted to the first two children, with a dedicated tool for checking whether one of the narrow exceptions applied. The Universal Credit estimator counted a maximum of three children. Now: The two-child limit was abolished by the Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Act 2026, which received Royal Assent on 18 March 2026; sections 1 and 2 came into force on 6 April 2026 and have effect for assessment periods beginning on or after that date. Universal Credit now pays the child element for every child, and the higher rate for a first child born before 6 April 2017 is unchanged. The guide now leads with the abolition and keeps the 2017 to 2026 rules only as history. The exception checker has been retired and redirects to the guide, and the estimator now includes an element for every child. Statements that the limit still applied, in the guides, glossary, Q&A and estimator, have been corrected, and on these pages references to Child Tax Credit are now historical, because tax credits ended on 5 April 2025. The Housing Benefit guide had implied the limit did not apply to Housing Benefit, by saying only that it did not affect the bedroom entitlement calculation. For working-age claims it applied to the child amounts in the Housing Benefit calculation until the Social Security (Removal of Two Child Limit) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/316) removed it from 6 April 2026 (for claimants over State Pension age it had been removed on 8 June 2024), though it never affected the bedroom entitlement; the page and the matching question now say so. The Benefit Cap glossary entry gave the weekly cap as £442.31 and £384.62, which were not the current amounts, listed Working Tax Credit as an exemption although tax credits have ended, said the cap is taken out of the housing element, and said working 16 hours a week gives an exemption outright. It now resolves the annual cap amounts from the same figures as the benefit cap guide, says the cap reduces the Universal Credit award by the excess, and describes the earnings exemption and the grace period as GOV.UK does. The historical list of exceptions now matches GOV.UK's, including the 'child of your child' exception that was missing. GOV.UK says the rules on the benefit cap stay the same and the additional payments for each child count towards it, so the increase may be limited; the pages now say so. DWP's statement that existing claims would be updated automatically is reported as DWP's statement, with GOV.UK's instruction on adding a child to a claim. (statutory update)
  • 14 October 2026 — The "Bailiff (Enforcement Agent)" glossary entry and the "can bailiffs force entry into my home" question page. Was: Both published the pre-uprating enforcement agent fee scale: a £75 compliance stage fee, a £235 enforcement stage fee with the 7.5% share applying to debt above £1,500, and a £110 sale stage fee. The question page presented it as an exhaustive list and added "No other fee is lawful". rates.ts had already been corrected to the in-force figures, so the table and the prose disagreed while both looked maintained — and a reader who relied on the page to challenge a lawful fee could have refused to pay it and escalated enforcement against themselves. Now: The figures are those in the Schedule to the Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014, both tables having been substituted with effect from 1 May 2026 by SI 2026/366: a compliance stage fee of £79, an enforcement stage fee of £247, a sale stage fee of £116, and the 7.5% share applying to the sum recovered above £1,900. The "no other fee is lawful" sentence has gone too, because it was wrong in a second way: regulation 8(2) lets an agent also recover disbursements actually and reasonably incurred — storing removed goods, a locksmith, and court fees on an application the court granted — so a reader could have refused a lawful charge on the strength of it. The question page now resolves all four figures through rates.ts, so the next uprating is one edit rather than a hunt. A new automated check now compares a named figure in prose against the table value and fails the quality gate when the two disagree; it is what found these two pages, and it now holds them. (statutory update)
  • 11 October 2026 — /mental-health-law/mental-health-tribunal, the "how do I appeal against being sectioned" and "difference between Section 2 and Section 3" question pages, the mental health crisis journey, and the Mental Health Tribunal glossary entry. Was: Six statements across three files gave the Mental Health Tribunal hearing period for a patient detained under Section 2 as 7 days, in wordings ranging from "must be heard within 7 days of receipt of the application" to "hearings usually within 7 days". One was a FAQ answer written for a patient on day 10 of a Section 2, reassuring them that there was still time; it was also published as FAQ structured data, so search engines and AI assistants could repeat the 7-day figure as a direct answer. The mental health crisis journey separately estimated the tribunal hearing at 4 to 8 weeks from application without distinguishing Section 2 from Section 3. The pages described the hearing as one that must be "held" or "take place" within the period, and some ran the clock from the patient's own application rather than from the Tribunal receiving it. Separately, the glossary entry said Tribunal decisions are written within 7 days, without noting that Section 2 cases have a shorter period. Now: The hearing period is 10 days, not 7. Rule 37(1) of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Health, Education and Social Care Chamber) Rules 2008 requires that in proceedings under section 66(1)(a) of the Mental Health Act 1983 the hearing must start within 10 days after the date on which the Tribunal received the application notice. The Tribunal Procedure (Amendment No. 2) Rules 2022 substituted 10 days for 7 with effect from 1 November 2022, making permanent a longer period first introduced temporarily in April 2020. The pages now say the hearing must start, rather than be held or concluded, within 10 days of the Tribunal receiving the application, and they note that the period changed in November 2022 so that readers who meet the older figure elsewhere know which is current. The decision period has also been made precise: under rule 41(3) the decision and written reasons must be given at the hearing or sent within 3 working days in a Section 2 case, and within 7 days in other cases, so the generic 7-day statement understated how quickly a Section 2 patient should receive reasons. Rule 37 and the amending instrument are now cited in the guide's sources. The separate 14-day window for a Section 2 patient to apply and the 28-day maximum length of Section 2 were correct and are unchanged. (statutory update)
  • 3 October 2026 — /benefits-support/winter-fuel-payment, /benefits-support/pension-credit, /benefits-support/pension-credit-underclaim, /benefits-support/cost-of-living-support, /benefits-support/cost-of-living-payments, the "why have I stopped getting the Winter Fuel Payment" question page, and the benefits hub cards. Was: Across five guides, a question page and two hub cards, the site stated that the Winter Fuel Payment is means-tested and paid only to households receiving Pension Credit or another qualifying means-tested benefit. The dedicated guide was built around that rule: it listed the qualifying benefits, headed a section "Claiming Pension Credit to Unlock the Payment", and told pensioners who had lost the payment that checking Pension Credit eligibility was "the most important action". The Pension Credit pages named the Winter Fuel Payment as the headline entitlement that claiming Pension Credit unlocks. The site also stated that the payment is made per household rather than per person, and gave only two amounts, £200 and £300. Three mutually inconsistent start dates were published for the restriction — "from 2024", "from winter 2024-2025" and "from winter 2025/26". Now: There is no means test. The restriction applied to winter 2024-25 and was reversed from winter 2025-26 onwards, so the statement was wrong for roughly fifteen months — and the "from winter 2025/26" version was wrong when it was written, because the restriction had already been reversed by then. For winter 2026-27 the payment goes to anyone born on or before 27 June 1960 who lived in England or Wales during the qualifying week of 21 to 27 September 2026, with no requirement to receive any benefit. Pension Credit is no longer a gateway to it and has been removed from every list of entitlements it unlocks; it remains a genuine gateway to Council Tax Reduction, NHS dental and optical help, Cold Weather Payments, the Warm Home Discount and the over-75 TV licence, and the pages still recommend claiming it on that basis. The means test has been replaced by recovery through the tax system: where an individual's own taxable income exceeds £35,000, HMRC reclaims the whole payment through their tax code or Self Assessment, untapered, and a partner's income does not count. The payment is per person, not per household, and the full set of amounts is now published — £200 or £300 living alone, £100 or £150 each where two eligible people share a home, £200 and £100 where those two are in different age bands, and £100 or £150 for a care-home resident, alongside the separate rule for couples on a joint means-tested claim. The Scottish position is now stated: the payment does not apply there, having been replaced by the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment of £105.55 to £316.70. The worst consequence of the error was that it told a pensioner who was not on Pension Credit that they would get nothing, when they were entitled to a payment and needed to do nothing to receive it. (factual correction)
  • 20 August 2026 — /care-later-life/care-cap-reform (and the former /care-later-life/care-cap-reform-status, now merged into it). Was: The care cap page described the £86,000 lifetime cap on personal care costs as legislated but delayed, said the government had 'not confirmed a new start date', and explained in the future tense how metering, care accounts and the independent personal budget would work once it commenced. A second page on the same topic correctly recorded that the cap had been abandoned; both were published simultaneously, and the page giving the wrong account held the URL the rest of the site linked to. Now: The cap was abandoned on 29 July 2024 in the Chancellor's statement on the public spending inheritance and never came into force. The page now says so, and explains that this was a decision not to commence rather than a repeal — Care Act 2014 s.15 remains on the statute book marked prospective and Health and Care Act 2022 s.166 was never commenced, which is why other sources still describe the scheme in the future tense. The planned increase in the capital limits to £100,000 and £20,000 fell with it, so the England limits remain £23,250 and £14,250. The page also previously attributed the current review to a 'Sue Gray review' and gave its reporting dates as 2027 and 2028; it is the Casey Commission, and following the acceleration announced on 29 July 2026 it is expected to report by summer 2027. (factual correction, commit 2225ed1)
  • 20 August 2026 — Personal Expenses Allowance and the deferred payment Disposable Income Allowance across care-later-life guides, questions, comparisons and the glossary. Was: The Personal Expenses Allowance — the income a resident in local-authority-funded care must be left with — appeared as four different figures at once: £30, £30.15, £30.65 and, in the guide to deferred payment agreements, £144. The £30.15 and £28.25 figures were the 2024-25 and 2023-24 rates still being published as current. The £144 was described as the Personal Expenses Allowance for residents with a deferred payment agreement. Now: All references resolve through a single entry in rates.ts. The England figure for 2026-27 is £31.80. Because the devolved figures differ materially, they are now stated rather than left to be inferred from the England rate: Scotland £37.65, the Welsh Minimum Income Amount £46.35, and Northern Ireland £36.62. The £144 was not a Personal Expenses Allowance at all — it is the Disposable Income Allowance, a separate and much larger allowance available only under a deferred payment agreement, and it is now named and explained as such. Describing it as the PEA overstated what an ordinary resident keeps by roughly four times. (factual correction, commit 2225ed1)
  • 20 August 2026 — /grants-funding/community-ownership-fund and the community funding guide. Was: The Community Ownership Fund guide was written throughout in the present tense — it described the fund as providing match-funding of up to £1m, set out the two-stage application process as something a reader could still enter, and advised checking the current prospectus for the latest eligibility criteria. Only one citation label, tucked in the sources, recorded that the fund had closed. The guide also named the sponsoring department as the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities as a present-tense statement of fact. Now: The fund is closed and the page says so first. GOV.UK states there will be no further application windows; the final round closed on 10 April 2024, and the programme awarded £135m to 409 projects across the UK. The page now records what the fund did, explains what replaces it — the Community Right to Buy created by the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026, which is not yet in force, and a £61m fund announced in June 2026 with no prospectus or application route open — and tells anyone holding a half-prepared bid which parts of it transfer to other funders. The department has been the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government since July 2024. Citations dated to the DLUHC era deliberately keep that name. (factual correction)
  • 20 August 2026 — /immigration-visas seasonal worker visa guide and /business-compliance modern slavery guidance. Was: Both guides named the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority as the current regulator for labour exploitation in agriculture, horticulture, shellfish gathering and food processing, and directed workers who believed they were being exploited to contact it. Now: The GLAA was abolished by s.148(1) of the Employment Rights Act 2025, commenced on 7 April 2026, and its functions passed to the Fair Work Agency. The guides now name the Fair Work Agency, state when and why the change happened so a worker holding older material recognises it as the same body, and point at the relocated public licensing register. Two things did not change and the guides now say so explicitly: the reporting line 0800 432 0804 was carried over unchanged, and licensing under the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 continues, with licences granted before April 2026 still valid. (statutory update, commit 7d340bf)
  • 19 August 2026 — ACAS early conciliation limitation extension and Self Assessment late-filing penalties in the deadline calculator. Was: The early conciliation 'stop the clock' extension to employment tribunal time limits was cited as s.207B of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, and Self Assessment late-filing penalties were cited as Schedule 55 to the Taxes Management Act 1970. Both citations appeared in the calculator's user-facing methodology as well as in its source links. Now: The early conciliation provision is s.207B of the Employment Rights Act 1996 — TULR(C)A 1992 has no s.207B. Late-filing penalties are governed by Schedule 55 to the Finance Act 2009, not the Taxes Management Act 1970, which has no Schedule 55. The deadlines themselves were correct; only the authority cited for them was wrong. (source review, commit 52a7715)
  • 11 August 2026 — Collective redundancy protective awards across employment-rights and business-compliance guides; /employment-rights paternity leave; and the pre-April-2026 figures in the SSP calculator. Was: The protective award for breaching collective redundancy consultation duties was given as up to 90 days' pay in five places. Paternity leave was described as requiring 26 weeks' continuous service. The SSP calculator used a Lower Earnings Limit of £123 and the current £123.25 weekly rate when assessing sickness that began before 6 April 2026. Now: The protective award is up to 180 days' pay, doubled by the Employment Rights Act 2025 with effect from 6 April 2026. The separate threshold that triggers collective consultation — 20 or more redundancies within any 90-day period — is unchanged. Paternity leave has been a day-one right since 6 April 2026, as has ordinary parental leave; statutory paternity pay keeps its own 26-week and earnings conditions, so it is now possible to qualify for the leave but not the pay. The SSP calculator now uses the correct 2025/26 figures for pre-reform sickness: a £125 Lower Earnings Limit and a £118.75 weekly rate. (statutory update)
  • 31 July 2026 — Calculators: statutory redundancy pay, notice period, Employment Tribunal limitation, Mandatory Reconsideration deadline; and the unfair dismissal compensatory award cap wherever it is cited. Was: Four calculation errors. (1) Redundancy pay applied the age multiplier using the employee's age at the END of each year of service, so a year in which someone turned 41 on the last day was paid at 1.5 weeks instead of 1 — overstating awards at each age boundary. (2) Redundancy service was measured by dividing elapsed time by an averaged 365.25-day year, so exactly two years' service spanning no leap day came out as 1.99 years and the tool reported no entitlement at all. (3) Notice periods were captured in whole years, so anyone with one to eleven months' service was told the statutory minimum was zero weeks. (4) Deadline tools added calendar months with JavaScript's setMonth, which rolls 31 January forward to 3 March, and compared UTC dates against local midnight, drifting by a day in British Summer Time. The unfair dismissal compensatory award cap was also still shown as the 2025/26 figure of £118,223. Now: Redundancy uses the age at the START of each year of service, matching the statutory test of "each full year you were 41 or older", and counts service with calendar arithmetic. Notice periods are captured in months and follow Employment Rights Act 1996 s.86 exactly: nothing under one month, one week from one month to two years, then one week per complete year to a twelve-week cap. Date arithmetic now clamps to the end of the target month and works entirely in UTC. The compensatory award cap is £123,543 from 6 April 2026, per the Schedule to SI 2026/310. The Employment Tribunal calculator also now applies the extended six-month limit to acts occurring on or after 1 October 2026, while keeping three months for earlier acts, as the transitional provisions require. (factual correction)
  • 31 July 2026 — /housing-renting/renters-rights-act-implementation-timeline, /wizards/is-section-21-valid, /compare/section-21-vs-section-8, and Section 21 references across housing-renting guides, checklists and the glossary. Was: Section 21 abolition was described as a future event awaiting a commencement order — variously 'expected late 2026 or 2027' and, in one FAQ, 'as at May 2026 that order has not yet been made'. The 'Is my Section 21 notice valid?' wizard walked users through validating a notice as though Section 21 were still available. Two duplicate comparison entries shared the slug section-21-vs-section-8, so one was unreachable. Now: Section 21 was abolished in England on 1 May 2026 by the Renters' Rights Act 2025, for existing tenancies as well as new ones. Guides now state that as fact, record the 31 July 2026 transitional deadline for issuing possession claims on notices served before commencement, and distinguish the phases still outstanding (mandatory Database registration from late 2026; Awaab's Law and the Decent Homes Standard for private rentals not yet commenced). The wizard has been repointed to 'Is my Section 21 notice still enforceable?' and now gates on the service date and whether a claim was issued in time before running the historic validity checks. The duplicate comparison entry has been removed. (statutory update)
  • 31 July 2026 — /employment-rights/statutory-sick-pay, /tools/ssp-calculator, /tools/calc/ssp-entitlement and SSP references across employment-rights guides. Was: SSP was described as beginning only on the fourth consecutive day of sickness (three unpaid "waiting days") and as requiring average weekly earnings of at least the Lower Earnings Limit. The SSP calculator returned "Not eligible" to anyone earning below £125 a week. Now: SSP is shown as a day-one right with no minimum-earnings test, paid at the flat weekly rate or 80% of average weekly earnings if that is lower. Section 10 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 abolished the waiting days and removed the Lower Earnings Limit condition with effect from 6 April 2026 (commenced by SI 2026/373). Sickness that began before that date is still assessed under the former rules, and both calculators now branch on the first day of sickness. Lowest-paid employees who were previously told they did not qualify are now entitled. (statutory update)
  • 25 April 2026 — All rate-citing guides. Was: 2025/26 figures (UC standard allowance £400.14, PIP daily-living enhanced £110.40, etc.). Now: 2026/27 figures (UC standard allowance £424.90, PIP daily-living enhanced £114.60, plus the new LCWRA two-tier rate of £429.80 protected / £217.26 new claimants from April 2026). (statutory update, commit 1ab4899)
  • 25 April 2026 — 8 guides across benefits-support, business-compliance, care-later-life, complaints-ombudsmen, driving, victims-crime. Was: Broken double-nested anchor tags created by an automated gov.uk linker (e.g. `<a href="https://www.<a href="…">…</a>">…</a>`). Now: Single clean anchor tags pointing to the correct GOV.UK page. (factual correction, commit 8832c9f)
  • 28 April 2026 — /business-compliance/corporation-tax. Was: Three sections covering rates, deductions, and deadlines (~360 words). Now: Four sections plus a new "Penalties, records, and disputes with HMRC" section covering Schedule 18 FA 1998 penalty regime, the six-year record-keeping rule, statutory reviews, First-tier Tribunal appeals, and Time-to-Pay arrangements (~700 words). (source review)

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