Legal Aid Agency

SissyPew

After 11 years, the Legal Aid Agency has informed me that I owe them £3500 for assistance i received with my divorce.

Until I received the letter, I did not know about the debt. For the past year, I have been disputing this debt based on the fact that 11 years is too long to wait to inform anyone that they have an outstanding debt.

I would like to know if I can use "Statute Barred" as a final argument to deal with this issue once and for all.

[Deleted User]

I would say yes you can BUT i`m no expert

Tixy

I would think it probably would be - but I'd suggest contacting national debtline for their opinion as a starting point.

fatbelly

Ultimately only a court can declare something to be 'statute barred'

What has been their response to your assertions over the past year?

Have they come up with a convincing argument why it is not statute barred?

I've just been looking at this case

LSC v Rasool

It seems that the date of revocation of your certificate constitutes the cause of action and that anything subsequent to that, such as an assessment of costs, which in this case did not occur till two and a half years later, is viewed as merely procedural, and does not stop time from running.

The old Swansea City Council v Glass case (which always gets cited in relation to default notices in consumer credit act cases) is heavily relied on here as well.

SissyPew

the LAA maintains that i signed a document which says that in the event that i benefited from the divorce i would pay for the costs. I have argued that my solicitor did not explain this to me at the time. My solicitor just told me that because i was income support i was entitled to legal aid and that i did not have not to pay anything. there never a discussion between my solicitor and regarding cost.

regarding the case you quoted, I don't understand the point that you are making; please explain again in simple language.

thanks

fatbelly

You got Legal Aid because you were on a prescribed benefit. On what date did they decide that that no longer applied (on what date did they revoke your certificate)? That is the date from which time starts running (called the cause of action), not the date they calculated the sum owed.

SissyPew

i applied for legal aid in 1999 and I been shown a document signed by me stating that the solicitors had explained the statutory charge. well, at the time the solicitor just said i had to sign a legal aid form to get assistance. so i signed the form but there was no explanation about the statutory charge.

the proceedings were finalised in March 2002.

if I have understood your questiion correctly, I received legal aid from 1999-2002. During the whole of the period, I was on income support.

After the divorce, the house was sold and my exhusband took his share and i got my share; the LAA believes that because i got this share, I should therefore pay for legal costs.

I have informed the LAA that when the house was sold i had to buy another property for me and my children to live in.

fatbelly

Normally if there is property involved they put a charge on it, registered at the Land Registry. This is the statutory charge that you refer to. It means that the house cannot be sold without the LAA being paid as part of the sale process.

I don't see enough of these cases to understand what happened in your case.

Unless there is a charge on your present property?

SissyPew

there is no charge on my property. They did not put a charge because my solicitor did not send LAA the bill until 2007 and then they said that they could not find me because I sold the house and moved. So now after 11 years they want me to pay the bill.

fatbelly

Then I think I'm back to Tixy's response of 3 days ago - run this past National Debtline.

It strikes me that 2007 may be the relevant date for the LAA - but that is still over six years ago. Now may be the time for a statute barred letter but ND probably have a better handle on the relevant cases so I'd go by what they say.

SissyPew

Thank you!!!!