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How we write and check our guides

Be Consumer Wise gives general legal information about UK consumer rights in plain English. It is not legal advice, and it cannot take account of the details of your own dispute.

Who prepares the guides

Be Wise Apps is prepared by a retired solicitor qualified in England and Wales, with over 30 years' international commercial law experience. Read more about Be Wise.

Sources first

Each guide is written from the legislation itself, such as the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 and the Consumer Credit Act 1974, and from official and established advice bodies, including GOV.UK, the Financial Conduct Authority, nidirect and Citizens Advice. Every guide lists the sources it relies on, and the full list is on our sources page.

Direct answers

Each guide opens with the answer to the question in its title, followed by the detail and a set of quick answers. Where the law differs between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the guide says so.

Dated reviews

Every guide shows the date it was last reviewed. When the law or official guidance changes, we update the affected guides and record the change on our recent changes page.

Automatic checks

Since October 2026 the official pages behind the quick answers on each guide are also checked automatically. Every night a small program re-reads a few of the 38 pages we rely on, on a rota: the pages most likely to change (the FCA’s Buy Now Pay Later pages, GOV.UK’s money-claim guidance, Citizens Advice’s pages on card refunds and scams, and nidirect’s small claims page) about once a week, and the sections of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and the other legislation, together with the Scottish Courts, nidirect, Visa and Trading Standards pages, about once a month. If a page has changed in a way that affects an answer, a suggested rewrite is put in front of the editor. Nothing is published automatically: only wording the editor has approved appears on a guide, marked “Updated” with the date. The full list of pages is on the Sources page.

Report an error

If you think something is wrong or out of date, use our contact form with the page and what you think should change.