Legal Aid question

Frith

Hi there.

I left my husband in Jan 2005 and started divorce proceedings in Feb 2005. He took me to court for residency of my sons and the court proceedings lasted 2 years. He also took me to court demanding the house - this took half an hour in spring 2007!

I have a legal bill of £18,000.

When the divorce started, I was working and earning about 14,000 p.a. At first, I was granted no legal aid AT ALL. I was then granted some but had to put £40 per month towards it.

I lost my job in August 2006 but had to carry on paying because "everything was coming from the same Legal Aid certificate" - according to my solicitor.

What I want to know is - should I still have been paying everything despite having hardly any income?

And should the residency case and the finance case have been lumped together like that?

Thanks.
Liz

Frith

Looks like no one knows!

Liz

niklepic

There is a leaflet on the LSC's website which advises that you must contact the LSC if your income changes - I think you will probably need to fill in a new means form for them to re-assess.

If you do have queries regarding your Legal Aid certificate then you can call them on 0845 345 4345 - just quote the number on your Legal Aid certificate and they should be able to help you.

i'm not sure about lumping your claim together - don't know much about family law i'm afraid.

Bossyboots

If you applied for legal aid to cover the finance issues while the certificate in relation to the residency was still live, then yes the two would have been put together. Your certificate in respect of the residency will have been amended to cover financial matters. You are not allowed to have two certificates running where one can cover the work required. This is actually a clever way for the LSC to recoup extra costs as all the costs fall within the statutory charge whereas if you had two separate certificates only the costs of the financial case would have done. From what you have put, it seems that this is what has happened.

However, when you were made redundant you should have notified the LSC and asked for a redetermination of your income. In reality though all this would have achieved would have been a break from the £40 a month contribution (provided your income was below the required level). The costs would still have fallen to be covered by the statutory charge so ultimately you would still be paying the same back to them. The only advantage would have been that if you were struggling to pay the £40 then it would have eased your position. As it is, you have paid back a little bit more of your debt to the LSC sooner than if the payments had been stopped.