Having big problems with Legal aid

alihud

Does anyone have any experience of legal aid?I'm having a terrible time.After a court case last year with my ex husband i was entitled to legal aid.The whole thing ended in August and case wrapped up in October.Then i started getting letters from legal aid wanting another lot of income forms filling out.I rang my solicitor and he said to not do anything that they were getting it all sorted.
Last month i received another letter saying my certificate had been revoked and i had to pay them over £1700.Again i spoke to solicitors secretary who then wrote to them and sent me a copy of the letter.Basically it says they have made a mistake that i couldnt possibly owe them any money as the case has finished.
Yesterday i received a letter from a debt recovery agency saying i have 7 days to pay them the money or organise repayments!!Its almost as if they either arent receiving the solcitors letters or they are just ignoring them.I am so utterly confused and very upset.
I tried speaking to solicitor yesterday but they were out until monday
What is the best way of dealing with this and does anyone have a similar experience?
Ali

gizmo111

Did you receive any financial settlement from the case?

alihud

No it was to do with my ex husband trying to take the children off me which he lost.My finances havent changed at all.My solicitor is just so flippant about it all.Just had an email back from him,he told me to ignore them again and he would "try" and call them off me????My alarm bells are seriously ringing here.Should i be contact their governing body?

Bossyboots

I am very surprised by your solicitor's attitude. The first thing you should have done is contacted the Legal Services Commission yourself to ask why they were doing a re-assessment. It may be that someone reported you as having more income that they believe you would have declared (a tit for tat tactic often used by disgruntled opponents) and sadly the LSC is such a mess that they could easily have misled themselves. There is no doubt that not communicating with the LSC would have led to your certificate being revoked and ultimately, it is your responsibility to ensure you reply to LSC communications sent direct to you. That is not your fault though I do understand you appear to have been badly advised by your solicitor.

The fact the case has ended has nothing to do with whether you now need to pay the legal fees. If the LSC, for whatever reason, have done a restrospective assessment, then it is entirely conceivable that they will ask you to pay the costs if their assessment is that you were not financially eligible at the time the costs were incurred.

As you have a lot of forms to fill out, I presume you are working/have assets rather than being on one of the passporting benefits. Did your solicitor grant you legal aid himself or were all the forms sent to the LSC for you to await their decision?

alihud

Hi there the forms were all sent to LSC through my solcitor.I was sent the certificate when i was granted legal aid.I knew i should have communicated with legal aid but my solicitor told me to ignore them.What are you suppossed to do?I'm so cross ive been given such bad advice.
I dont work as i have a chronic illness so am on benefits and therefore got the legal aid.I think they have revoked my certificate because i didnt reply to their letters on advice of my solicitor.He has also told me he will deal with the debt collectors but i've lost my faith in him now.Should i contact his governing body and report him for this?
Theres no way i can pay this money and to be honest why should i when this is not my fault?I just went with his advice.

Bossyboots

Your first consideration must be to sort out the legal aid situation. You can in the meantime ask your solicitor for details of their complaints procedure. That is your first step before reporting him/the firm although I share your concern that something is rather amiss here.

You need to telephone the legal services commission and inform them of the situation and the advice you received to see whether they will call off the debt collectors while it is sorted out. Whether you have any luck will probably depend on who answers the phone as they may well take the view that there is sufficient information sent with the certificate setting out what is expected of you and that you should respond to any request for further information from them promptly. I think you should labour the point that you should also have been able to rely on the information supplied by your solicitor who you were trusting to be sorting this out and who had explicitly told you not to worry about it. While that is not the LSC's problem, you may just get someone who is prepared to be sympathetic. (Please note I am trying to tell you what to expect, not criticise. See next paragraph)

I have some real concerns about what your solicitor is telling you and the reasons for this. As the onus is on you to provide the financial information, then I am unsure what your solicitor has to gain by telling you to ignore the letter. They should know that is an absolute no no and while they can assist you with representations to the LSC, it is the certificate holder that has the liability. Without all the ins and outs, I do wonder whether they submitted the wrong finance forms with your application and don't want to be caught out. Covering a mistake is the only thing I can think of to explain their actions. They would know how serious this is for you and how hard it is to put right once it gets to this stage.

Do you know why the LSC asked you to send further forms? Do you have the details of the forms originally submitted and the new forms? They all have numbers in the right hand corner. My thoughts while typing this are running towards the idea that they have asked you to fill out the form for benefits which automatically qualify you for legal aid whereas in fact the benefits you are on should have been means tested. In addition, although the forms did go to the lsc, the solicitors could have granted you legal aid using "devolved powers" which means they grant it prior to submitting the forms. The DWP may then have flagged up that you aren't in receipt of a "passporting" benefit. Equally, the DWP are making many mistakes in answering queries from the LSC and this could have been all that was wrong. This would have been a simple mistake to clear up. Sometimes it has actually been the LSC making the wrong request to the DWP.

There have clearly been some errors made here, the biggest of which seems to be your solicitor telling you not to deal with the LSC queries yourself. This was a gross error, compounded by their inaction. If they had intervened at the time of telling you to ignore the LSC, then the problem may even have been resolved at that time if there was a simple to identify LSC error. In any event, they should have told you that you need to respond to a request by the LSC for further information, with the information they require.

Get onto the LSC first thing tomorrow and see how you get on with them. I hope they will at least give you the chance to supply the information even now. If you can post up or PM me the benefits you are on, I can tell you what form you should have filled in and you can see whether this is the same one as you have now been sent, which I think unlikely because for passporting benefits the form is only two pages and only requires your name, address, NI number and some other minor information, as well as your signature.