Scottish Legal Aid Board

 

To qualify for civil legal aid, you must show that your income is within the current financial limits set by the Scottish Parliament, and that your capital is not likely to be enough to cover the costs of your case. (You will also have to satisfy us, the Scottish Legal Aid Board, that you have a legal basis for your case and that it is reasonable for public funds to be used for your case.)

Follow these steps to work out whether you are likely to qualify financially for civil legal aid. You should read the sections to make sure that you are using the correct information.

Remember that this is a guide to whether you are likely to be financially eligible. If you decide to go ahead with your application for civil legal aid, we will carry out a full assessment to decide if you qualify financially.

Your household

Tell us about your situation and any dependant relatives you may have living with you - this is a child or person who has no income of their own. The information you give here will automatically work out the allowances you are entitled to.

Do you/your partner receive Income Support or income-based Jobseeker's Allowance or income-related Employment and Support Allowance?

If you receive either of these benefits, you qualify automatically on income and capital for civil legal aid, and we will not ask you to pay a contribution towards the cost of your case.

If you do not receive these benefits, continue with step 3.

 

Work out your total disposable income

You should read the sections to make sure that you include the correct information on your income and expenses.

Now work out your capital.

Add up all your capital (and the capital of your partner if appropriate) - this means money and anything else of value that you own.

Do you qualify?

You have to meet the financial tests for BOTH income and capital. If you qualify, you may have to pay a contribution from income capital or both. You can read more about what you may have to pay below.

 

About the qualifying amounts for civil legal aid

To qualify for civil legal aid, you have to meet the tests for BOTH income and capital. If your disposable income is:

• more than £10,306, you are not eligible on income and do NOT qualify for civil legal aid
  
  
• £3,156 or less, you are eligible on income and will not have to pay a contribution from income

• between £3,156 and £10,306, you are eligible on income but will have to pay a contribution.

If you qualify on income, and your disposable capital is:

• £7,147 or less, you are eligible on capital and will not have to pay a contribution from your capital

• between £7,147 and £11,847 you are eligible on capital, but will have to pay a contribution – this will be equal to the difference between your capital figure and £7,147.

• more than £11,847* you would normally be refused legal aid if we think you can afford to proceed without it. (This will depend on the type of proceedings you are involved in, and how costly these are likely to be.)

*If you are a pensioner, even if your capital is more than £11,847 you may still qualify: speak to your solicitor about this.

 

What you may have to pay?

Contributions

The figures shown above are the maximum that you would have to pay as ‘contributions’. Bear in mind that you may have to pay a contribution for advice and assistance and a contribution for civil legal aid.

If you apply for civil legal aid, your solicitor will estimate how much your case is likely to cost.

• If this estimate is less than the amount that we decide you are able to pay in contributions, we may reduce the amount of the contributions we ask you to pay.
• However, if the case ends up costing more than your solicitor’s estimate, you will still have to pay the full amount we calculated originally, or the sum of your solicitor’s account, whichever is less.

You may get some of your contribution back if the case costs less than we expect, or if we get back some of the costs from your opponent.

‘Special urgency’ contributions

In certain circumstances, your solicitor may be able to do urgent work on your behalf in court before we make a decision on your legal aid application – for example, to apply to the court for an order to prevent someone assaulting you. However, you may have to pay us a contribution for this work, even if you decide not to go ahead with the case, or your application for legal aid is unsuccessful. Any contribution we ask for will be based on your ability to pay, so you must give us the information we need to work out how much you can pay. If you don’t give us this information, you may have to pay the whole cost.

What else you might have to pay

If you are granted civil legal aid, then at the end of the case we will pay your solicitor’s bill. However, to cover the costs of the case, we will use:

• first, any costs paid by your opponent(s)
• second, any contribution you have to pay to us
• third, if these first two are not enough, part or all of any money or property you win or manage to keep as a result of your case
• fourth, if these first three are not enough, we will pay the remainder.

This means that as well as any contributions you have to pay, if you win or keep money or property, we may take some or all of this money to cover any shortfall between what we have paid out in your case and what we have received. This is sometimes called ‘clawback’. If your case relates to money or property, then you need to know more about ‘clawback’. You should read our leaflet, Civil legal aid – what you may have to pay at the end of your case if you win or keep money or property.

You should also understand that legal aid does not mean that your opponent’s costs are covered. If you lose your case, the court may order you to pay some or all of your opponent’s costs.

If you are worried about this, or anything else to do with your case and how legal aid would affect you, you should ask your solicitor. You can also get more information on all aspects of civil legal aid from our leaflet Civil legal aid - information for applicants, which your solicitor will give you before you apply.

Payment of contributions

If you have to pay a contribution based on income, we will normally allow you to pay in instalments. We’ll tell you how many instalments, and over how long a period. This will depend on the total amount you have to pay.

Normally, we will allow contributions of –

• up to £500 to be paid in 20 monthly instalments
• £501 - £1,000 to be paid in 30 monthly instalments
• £1,001 - £1,500 to be paid in 36 monthly instalments
• £1,501 - £2,000 to be paid in 42 monthly instalments
• over £2,000 to be paid in 48 monthly instalments

If you think you will have difficulty paying over that period, sometimes we may allow you to pay over a longer time. You will have to show us reasons why we should allow you to do so. Staff in our Treasury Department will be happy to discuss this with you.

If your contribution is based on your capital, we will normally ask you to pay this in one lump sum.