Step 2: About your household situation
Tell us about your situation and any dependants living with you - this is a child or person(s) who has (have) no income of their own.
Help / Information
- Partner: You should include your partner or spouse in these steps even if you don’t always live in the same household. For example your partner may work away or be in prison. You do not have to include your partner or spouse if the application is against them or you consider the relationship to be over.
- Dependants: You should only declare children who are wholly dependent on you full time. We may consider making an allowance when we receive your application, for children in your care part of the time or adult children who have some income of their own but for this calculation you should not include them.
Step 3: Do you qualify automatically based on income?
If you receive any of the benefits below, select 'Yes'. You qualify automatically on income and must continue to Step 4 to check if you qualify on capital.
If you do not receive any of the benefits below, please select 'no' and follow the instructions.
Help / Information
If you or your partner receive:
- Universal credit, or
- Income support, or
- Income-based jobseeker's allowance or
- Income-related employment and support allowance
You qualify for advice and assistance on income - but you need to see if you qualify on capital in Step 4.
If you DO NOT receive any of the benefits above:
If you don't receive these benefits, please give us information below about your weekly income - this is the total income you and your partner receive in a week.
For example, enter your pay less tax and National Insurance contributions if you are employed plus any other income such as interest on savings.
Depending on your income, you may have to pay a contribution.
Help / Information
Your net weekly income
We calculate your income on what you and your spouse or partner, if you have one, have received in the seven days before being granted Legal Advice and Assistance by your solicitor.
You must include (rounded up or down to the nearest pound):
• Earnings after Income tax and National insurance deductions
• Drawings or profits from business
• Maintenance payments you receive from either an individual or through the Child Maintenance Service
• Statutory sick pay or maternity pay
• Pension payments
• Student grants
• Regular financial support from friends and family
• Income from savings and investments
• Dividends from shares
• Income from any other source
If your income is paid monthly multiply the amounts by 12 to calculate the annual figure then divide by 52 to calculate a weekly figure.
If your income is paid 4 weekly multiply the amounts by 13 to calculate the annual figure then divide by 52 to calculate a weekly figure.
Maintenance payments
If you pay maintenance, work out what you pay weekly. Do not include any Child Support Agency payments.
Enter '0' if you do not receive an income
Enter '0' if you do not make maintenance payments.
This is calculated automatically from the number of dependants in Step 2.
This is calculated automatically as you answer all questions.
Step 4: Do you qualify based on capital?
We may take into consideration any capital disposed of when you were likely to be aware of your involvement in litigation, if we don’t consider the reasons given justified.
If you think this may be a situation that applies to you, you can contact us on 0131 226 7061 to check if you should include the capital in this calculation. Please ask to speak to either the criminal, civil or children's assessment team depending on what type of advice and assistance you are wanting to check your eligibility for.
Add up all your capital and that of your partner (unless we do not have to consider their resources - see the 'Help/Information' box for Step 2). The calculator will work out your allowances using what you told us at Step 2 above.
(If you are a pensioner, you may qualify even if your capital is more than £1,716 – speak to your solicitor about this.)
Help / Information
Total capital
By capital we mean money and anything else of value you and your spouse or partner (if you have one) own.
Examples of capital include:
- The value of any interest in land and buildings owned after the deduction of any loans secured on them, including interests in timeshares. We do not include the home you live in.
- Money in the bank, building society, Post Office, credit union, premium bonds etc.
- Investments, stocks and shares
- Cash-in values of any policies
- Money owed to you or your spouse or partner
- Money due from the will of someone who has died
- Money due from a trust fund
- Money available from your or your spouse’s or partner’s business or which could be borrowed against the business assets.
- The value of any valuable possessions such as a boat, caravan, jewellery (but not wedding or engagement rings) or items bought for investment purposes
Capital not to be included:
- The house which you live in
- Tools and equipment you need for work
- The value of any property or item you have an interest in which is being sought by the opponent in the action for which your civil application relates to will be disregarded for assessment purposes. However, we will only disregard the amount/share they are putting at issue. For example if you own 50% of a house or some savings and the opponent is asking for it to be split 60/40 in their favour only 10% of your share would be disregarded for assessment purposes.
Enter 0 if you do not have any capital
No Dependents
Spouse Only
Single Dependent
No Spouse, Multiple Dependents
Spouse and Dependent(s)
Step 5: Estimate
Once you complete these fields, an estimate will be provided:
- Type of case
- Weekly income (if not receiving benefits)
- Maintenance payments (if not receiving benefits)
- Total capital
Once you complete these fields, an estimate will be provided:
- Type of case
- Weekly income (if not receiving benefits)
- Maintenance payments (if not receiving benefits)
- Total capital
Once you complete these fields, an estimate will be provided:
- Type of case
- Weekly income (if not receiving benefits)
- Maintenance payments (if not receiving benefits)
- Total capital
Based on the above figures, you are unlikely to qualify for advice and assistance, based on capital.
Based on the above figures, you are unlikely to qualify for advice and assistance, based on income.
Based on the above figures, you are likely to qualify for advice and assistance
You will not have to pay any contribution.
Next steps
You can use our Find a Solicitor page (see section below) to help you contact a solicitor.
Please be aware, this estimator is only a guide as to whether you are likely to qualify for advice and assistance.
Based on the above figures, you are likely to qualify for advice and assistance.
You will not have to pay any contribution.
Next steps
You can use our Find a Solicitor page (see section below) to help you contact a solicitor.
Please be aware, this estimator is only a guide as to whether you are likely to qualify for advice and assistance.
Based on the above figures, you are likely to qualify for advice and assistance.
However, you will have to pay a contribution to your solicitor of: £TBC of full contribution.
Next steps
You can use our Find a Solicitor page (see section below) to help you contact a solicitor.
Please be aware, this estimator is only a guide as to whether you are likely to qualify for advice and assistance.
Based on the above figures, you are likely to qualify for advice and assistance.
However, you will have to pay a contribution to your solicitor of: £TBC of full contribution OR £TBC of diagnostic contribution.
Your solicitor will tell you which amount you would have to pay, as this depends on what your legal problem is about.
Next steps
You can use our Find a Solicitor page (see section below) to help you contact a solicitor.
Please be aware, this estimator is only a guide as to whether you are likely to qualify for advice and assistance.
Based on the above figures, you are likely to qualify for advice and assistance.
However, you will have to pay a contribution to your solicitor of: £TBC of full contribution OR £TBC of general contribution.
Your solicitor will tell you which amount you would have to pay, as this depends on what your legal problem is about.
Next steps
You can use our Find a Solicitor page (see section below) to help you contact a solicitor.
Please be aware, this estimator is only a guide as to whether you are likely to qualify for advice and assistance.
Some final points to be aware of:
Remember that this estimator is only a guide as to whether you are likely to qualify financially for legal advice and assistance and how much, if anything, you may be asked to pay as a contribution from your disposable income.
Your solicitor will go through these figures with you if you go ahead with your application, and will be able to tell you if you are eligible.
You can also call us on 0131 226 7061 - please ask to speak to either the criminal, civil or children's assessment team depending on what type of advice and assistance you are wanting to check your eligibility for.
If you decide to apply for legal advice and assistance, you will need to take proof (for example payslips, benefit letters, bank statements etc.) of your income and capital with you to your first appointment with your solicitor as they are required by law to satisfy themselves that you are financially eligible. Where you have a spouse or a partner you must also take proof of their income and capital as their resources may require to be taken into account when assessing your financial eligibility to receive legal advice and assistance.
At the end of your action, if you are successful in receiving or keeping an award of money or property, you may be asked to make further payment to cover the cost of your solicitor’s account from that money or property.
You can contact a solicitor who can help you with your legal assistance application using our Find a Solicitor page - please see section below.
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Hidden Variables
The field names for each of the hidden variables shoudl be self-descriptive.
If the number of allowance brackets change, this form will need rewritten.
If the number of brackets sstays the same, but the limits change, then just adapt the variables accordingly. Use numbers, not currency.
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Hidden Calculations
All of the below is where the "magic" happens. Note the followning.
1. There is a JS file in /resources/assets/js/gravity-extras.js, which communicates with these variables. It was not possble to do everything we needed in Gravity Forms alone. This is a SCSS file, so gulp will need to run before changes will be committed to the front-end version of the site.
2. The HTML content blocks above include a couple of spans with unique IDs. If you choose to remove those Spans, then the user will never see the outputs from the contribution scales.
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This figure ultimately decides whether the user qualifies by capital.
Do not adjust the field in any way.
Hidden
This figure ultimately decides whether the user qualifies on income.
Do not adjust the field in any way.
Hidden
This figure ultimately decides whether the user qualifies in full on income.
Do not adjust the field in any way.
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This is calculated dynamically. Do not adjust this question. It's not actually used by the calculator outputs, but helps with debugging.
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This must be sorted in numeric order by Label (click "show values" if you cannot see labels).
Label should represent the band in which the user's income must fall. So it's greater than the previous label, and less than this current label.
Think of label as Upper Limit for a band.
The value is the contribution they'll have to pay as a result of their income.
Anyone with income less than the first label will pay £0 contribution.
Anyone with income higher than last label will not qualify for assistance.
* will only work if contribution-scale is applied as a CSS class in the advanced tab *
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This is calculated dynamically. Do not adjust this question. It's not actually used by the calculator outputs, but helps with debugging.
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See description above for contribution_scale. This works in the same way.
