Domestic Building Legal Service

Many people in prison have ongoing issues with housing and debts, both before and after release.33% of people in prisons were homeless before prison, and 54% expect to be homeless when released. And if former prisoners exit into homelessness, they are twice as likely to return to prison within the first 9 months of release.

Without tailored, holistic legal help to resolve these issues, people are at greater risk of homelessness and, as a consequence, ending up back in prison.

We help Victorian home owners understand their rights

With funding from the Victorian Government, we set up the Domestic Building Legal Service in 2016 to help Victorian homeowners involved in disputes with their builders. We empower homeowners to understand their rights and take the best course of action to resolve their dispute.

Before Victoria’s domestic building laws were changed, many homeowners struggled to resolve the issues they had with their builder. To help home owners and builders resolve their disputes, the government introduced Domestic Building Dispute Resolution Victoria (DBDRV), a free dispute resolution service. But even after going through DBDRV, many homeowners still can’t reach a resolution. That’s where our service comes in.

We aim to help unrepresented homeowners (who have been through the DBDRV process) to:

• understand the law
• understand VCAT’s procedures for proceedings
• prepare documents to pursue or respond to legal proceedings
• be aware of potential orders and the effect of not complying with orders
• present their case in the best possible manner
• engage with experts
• resolve their disputes in the most efficient and favourable way

Who can we assist

We provide free legal help to people in prison in most Victorian prisons. Currently, our focus is on housing issues to avoid people getting evicted while in prison on short sentences or remand. We also specialise in housing debts owed to previous residential rental providers (particularly the Director of Housing), which may prevent people from finding new housing after release.

Scoping holistic legal needs of Victorians exiting prison

From over 6 years of our specialised work with people in prison, we know that access to holistic legal supports are vital to successful post-release reintegration. That’s why we have completed a scoping study to assess opportunities to provide best-practice, wrap-around legal help for people released from prison.

Our final report, ‘Closing the Revolving Door: Scoping holistic legal needs of Victorians exiting prison’, involves an in-depth review of the national and international literature, as well as consultations involving people with lived experience of imprisonment, specialist legal services and post-release support providers.

Our detailed learnings and direct insights from the scoping study support our recommendations for a potential new project to best increase access to legal services and achieve social justice for Victorians on their release from prison.

Read our reports