Editorial Policy: How We Write and Review Legal Content

We write for clarity, not legal complexity. Our goal on every page is to explain three things: what the law says, what your rights are, and what you should do. We do not give individual legal advice, we provide general legal information grounded in primary law and authoritative guidance.

We apply the following standards to all content published on this site:

• Every verified page shows, at the top, the date it was last checked against official sources. The sources for that check are recorded in our provenance register and listed in the page's structured data
• Official government guidance (GOV.UK and its devolved equivalents) is read alongside the legislation itself for every topic where such guidance exists
• Public bodies such as Acas, DWP, HMRC and the FCA are official sources for their own areas. Charities and advice organisations are not used as evidence
• Where the law differs across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, a verified page says so. This is one of the things being fixed as pages are verified: some older pages describe the position in England without saying so
• A verified page identifies the statute or statutes the right or obligation arises under, where naming one helps the reader act
• Step-by-step explanations are cross-checked against the source legislation text to confirm accuracy of summary

We do not rely on law firm marketing content, unverified news articles, comparison sites, or user-generated content as sources. If we cannot confirm a statement against an official source, we do not publish it.

Each piece of content on Know Your Rights UK goes through a defined creation and review process before publication:

This site covers a great deal of law. Each guide draws on legislation and official guidance from the different nations of the UK. There are already hundreds of pieces to find and read, and the number grows with every guide. Finding all of it, collecting it and keeping it up to date is more than a single person could do without help.

So the site uses a custom AI agent to find and collect the legislation and official guidance that a guide needs, and to help draft the guides. A person then reads and fact checks every guide before it goes live, and Steven Butler edits it and answers for what is published. A script then checks each figure against an exact quotation from an official source, as described above.

This is a stopgap. When we have volunteers and more staff, whether through income the site earns or by moving to charitable status, we intend to stop using AI assistance. If you would like to help us get there, see the volunteer page.

Legal information is only useful if it is current. What we keep is a provenance register, one entry per guide rather than per statute, holding:

• The date the guide was last checked in full against official sources
• Every source consulted for that check, named and linked, so you can go and read the same page we did
• What period the figures on the guide cover, where that is not obvious from the page
• Whether a source is primary legislation, official guidance, a statistical release, or, in the few cases where no official source exists, something else clearly labelled
• Which guides have not yet been through that check, so the gap is visible rather than hidden

When a new Act receives Royal Assent, when a commencement order brings new provisions into force, or when government guidance is substantially revised, we update the affected pages. We used to publish fixed target turnaround times here for different kinds of change. We have removed them, because a promise nobody measures is worth less than a record anyone can check, and a review of the whole site in September 2026 found figures that had been wrong for years while those targets sat on this page. What we do instead is show our working:

• Every guide shows at the top the date it was last checked against official sources, and the sources for that check are recorded in the provenance register
• A guide that has not been through a recorded check says so plainly rather than showing a date it has not earned
• A build check counts how many guides are verified and fails if any page is added without recording its sources, so the register cannot quietly fall behind

Budgets and the April upratings are when many guides fall out of date at once. After each one we work back through the affected guides and re-record them, and until a guide has been re-checked it keeps showing the older date rather than implying it is current.

We apply strict source standards to all content. We only cite and rely on the following categories of official source:

Charities and advice services, such as Citizens Advice, Shelter and Turn2us, show us which questions people struggle with, so we read them to decide what to answer. We do not cite them as evidence, and where one of them differs from an official source, the official source wins.

We do not rely on the following as sources:

• ✗No: Law firm marketing content, blogs, or client-facing guides (these are not authoritative and may be incomplete or promotional)
• ✗No: Newspaper or news website articles (these may be inaccurate or fail to reflect the full legal position)
• ✗No: Comparison or price-comparison website content
• ✗No: User-generated content (forums, Reddit, social media)
• ✗No: AI-generated summaries of legislation (we go to the primary source directly)

Where case law is relevant, for example, tribunal decisions on PIP descriptors or employment discrimination cases, we reference the tribunal or court decision directly, not summaries produced by third parties.

Despite our rigorous process, errors can occur, legislation changes quickly, and the interaction between different Acts and regulations is sometimes complex. We are committed to correcting errors promptly and transparently.

If we have published inaccurate information, we will:

• Correct the error on the affected page as quickly as we can once we have confirmed it
• Note the correction on the page where appropriate, including the nature of the change
• Update the page's last-reviewed date to reflect the correction
• Review related pages that may be affected by the same error

If you believe any of our content is wrong or outdated, please contact us at contact@knowyourrightsuk.com with the URL of the page in question and a description of the specific issue. Please include the source you believe we should reference if possible.

We aim to acknowledge accuracy reports quickly and to resolve substantive issues without unnecessary delay. We do not publish a fixed turnaround-time promise here, for the same reason explained above: a promise nobody measures is worth less than the checked date already shown on every guide. We are grateful to users who take the time to flag potential inaccuracies, it makes this resource better for everyone.

The information on this site is general legal information, not legal advice. It describes the law as it applies in England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland (as indicated on each page). It does not account for your individual circumstances, the specific facts of your situation, or any agreements or documents you have entered into.

Know Your Rights UK is not a law firm. We are not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority or the Financial Conduct Authority. Using this site does not create a solicitor-client relationship or any other professional relationship.

While we make every effort to ensure the accuracy of our content, we cannot guarantee that all information is complete, current, or applicable to your specific situation. Legal rights and entitlements can vary based on individual facts and circumstances. Always seek professional advice before taking legal action.