CIVIL LEGAL ASSISTANCE

You are a single mother with one child, with a gross income of £60,000, including your salary, tax credits, child benefit, payments from your ex-partner through the CSA and interest on your £6,000 savings.   Your total housing costs, including mortgage, council tax and insurance are £19,000 pa, and you are paying £12,350 in income tax and national insurance payments.  You have a season ticket to commute between Edinburgh and Glasgow, costing £3,024 pa and you pay childcare costs of £6,000 pa. 

As your disposable income after making the allowances for the dependency of your child which is set annually by the Government is  £16,700 you  would not previously have qualified for legal aid.

You now would qualify financially for civil legal aid.

You would have to pay a maximum contribution based on income of £3,721, – you could pay this in 48 monthly instalments of £77.52.

You have no contribution based on capital.

But – talk to your solicitor – if they think the case will cost less than the maximum contribution we assess you should pay, we may be able to restrict your contribution. (But if the case eventually costs more than they estimated, we may still have to ask you to pay some or all of the rest of the assessed contribution.)

And you may be able to get some or all of your contribution back if

• the court orders your opponent to pay the costs of the case (and your opponent pays these) or
• you pay more in contributions than the cost of the case.