Advice please - divorce, partners 'right to money' and Legal Aid fraud

RAS

Legal advice on a wide range of issues, including debt (usually for those on benefits or a low income). The Housing Duty Scheme gives free advice by phone or at around 100 courts across England and Wales if you are in danger of eviction or repossession.

• Link: Community Legal Advice
• Tel: 0845 345 4345 (or text 'legalaid' and name to 80010 to get a call back)
• Opening times: M-F 9am-6:30pm, Sa 9am-12:30pm.

blue_monkey_2

rachbc wrote: »

Oh and just rememebr - when ex and I were separating we both living in same house and both claimed Legal Aid for Mediation based on our sole incomes

Handy to know, thank you. I will advise him of this. He has just always paid his legal costs and did not ask about claiming but if he can then I am sure he will.

blue_monkey_2

Thanks RAS, just trying to gather as much info as possible but I am going to call them tomorrow and see what they say about it because, to me, if you was claiming benefits while living elsewhere then you'd get done for that. I cannot see how this is different.

rachbc

actually if they are not cohabiting, merelyliving at the same address she may be able claim benefits - again when I seperated from ex I rang tax credits and told them the situation and i claimed based on my income alone. We had closed our joint account and split our finances at that point though

gizmo111

While she is there he has a legal duty to support her - this has already been gone through with his solicitor. he is doing this to the bare minimum as he has no choice.

What legal duty?? Plenty of people seperate and still live under the same roof and don't support the other. Plenty of people who are together don't support each other.
Re the claiming legal aid - she will be entitled to some of the house equity and any bill will be taken out of her share.

blue_monkey_2

He has been told by the solicitor he has to still support her as they are not separated properly and she does not earn much money. I don't get it either - if it was me I'd not be giving a penny and would stick 2 fingers up but he just does and that is why he has been treated so badly for so long. He just accepted this was a 'normal' way to live. Even without the family issues from the last 6 months, their life has been not what you or I would call normal. She used to tell me what she did to him and made it out to be that he deserved all of this stuff. Now I realise that he was being abused - thrown out of the house and made to sleep in the car for dropping a glass for example, he would just go and then knock to come in the next day and she would let him (she told me this stuff herself) - and I feel ashamed for not seeing it before. He has help now though so that is in the past and he is looking forward, this is the main thing.

Re the house. She wants to live there day to day but she cannot afford to pay half the mortgage or bills anyway so her husband would be paying for everything, thus supporting her financially if she stays in the house. I cannot see how that would ever work. All of that stuff will be dealt at the next hearing in the NY so is irrelevant tbh - but from June until this present day, she has been claiming Legal Aid as a single person earning a small amount of money and living at address A - and has not been a single person, has a joint income with her husband and has never lived at address A. And she is still claiming LA as that person.