"I am still hearing of things I have never heard of before... I hear of things and think how on earth did a landlord, property owner or real estate agent do this," she said.

"I am constantly amazed they come up with new and terrifying things to do to people."

Ms Pippen is the executive officer of Tenants' Union ACT, and among the cases that shocked her most, was a "slum" landlord who had more than 100 people living across five standard properties.

"This was a protracted matter because the government raided the properties because they were not fit to live in and evicted all of the people," she said.

"There were many ongoing matters with tenants needing to be housed, seeking compensation and in the longer term seeking law reform to try and stop this from occurring again."

On Friday, Tenants' Union ACT will close its Turner office as the ACT government chose to defund the union's role as a tenancy advice service after a tender process last year.

Although the advice service will no longer be provided by the union it will continue to operate as a volunteer organisation.

"While the service is gone and we have no funding, the Tenants' Union ACT is going to continue and the voice for tenants isn't going to be quietened because the ACT government decided not to give us funding," Ms Pippen said.

"The organisation existed for quite a few years and participated in law reform work before it was funded and it will be back again doing the same thing."

The amount of support the union had received was "quite overwhelming", Ms Pippen said.

"It's a good incentive to keep going," she said.

Ms Pippen said the organisation was told in August last year it would have to tender for the legal advice service it had provided for more than 25 years. She is still perplexed by the decision.

"We were just told it was a practical thing, that's what they decided should happen. It doesn't happen to community legal centres anywhere but that's what the directorate decided," she said.

At the time, the ACT's Justice and Community Safety Directorate explained this was to ensure the service provided "the best value for money and quality of service for the Canberra community".

The Tenants' Union ACT is funded by interest on bond and Ms Pippen said "taking that away means we have nothing".

The organisation also has reserves but that money has been exhausted in paying out staff redundancies and this has meant the service has had to close one month before the new contract starts.

Legal Aid ACT was announced as the preferred tenderer in December and its contract starts on April 1.

Legal Aid ACT chief executive John Boersig said the organisation has accelerated its resources to ensure "continuity of service".

Mr Boersig said the organisation has provided advice to tenants, particularly in the last few years.

"It's been necessary for us to be able to have a high capacity to do tenancy work and there is a range of reasons for that," he said.

"Over the last few months we have been increasing our resourcing to service these kinds of matters.

"One of the strengths of Legal Aid ACT is it's agile and because it's a little bigger, we can fill short term need."

Legal Aid ACT will open a tenancy advice service, with a hotline number, website and business name in April. Four front-line staff will also be employed.

In the meantime, the organisation will field calls through its already-existing hotline.