confused. . . .again

Have just received a letter from Legal Services Commission which says im not entitled to public funding.I also have a letter from my sol which reads i am eligible for Legal help.Can any one help explain this, i have applied for ancillary relief .What is the cost likely to be?

Ihope your solicitor will be able to clarify the legal aid position for you - if not, someone who knows far more than me about that will be along.

However, I can tell you that privately paying for ancillary relief is extraordinarily expensive, with the average case costing 10k plus.

If you are not entitled to legal aid, your solicitor should be able to help with alternative funding options. And you should factor in that figure when negotiating.

Hi Fee!

Not actually sure about legal aid, but a suggestion is to book an appointment with the Citizens Advice Bureau. They should be able to clarify where you stand aid wise.

It may help it may not.

Good Luck

CrusaderGirl

LSC seem to making a fair number of errors these days so it's well worth you or your sol querying them and not letting up until you get a satisfactory answer.

Legal Help = the solicitor assesses you themselves as on your financial circumstances on the day you come to see them. This enables your solicitors to write letters, negotiate, give you advise, represent you in uncontested divorce proceedings but not to represent you in any other proceedings (such as ancillary relief).

Legal Funding (full legal aid) = you fill in forms about your financial circumstances which are sent to the Legal Services Commission to assess you. LSC do indeed make many mistakes, or if you may have misunderstood a question on the form. Ask for the LSC assessment breakdown to check all is correct. If it is, then something might have changed since you were assessed for Legal Help by your solicitor, or they assessed you wrong.

Your solicitor won't be able to help you with the ancillary relief proceedings on legal help. If you are not eligible for legal funding you can could represent yourself in the main and pay privately for your solicitor to give you ad hoc advice as and when you need it. Not all sols are happy to do that though. Ask them for an estimate to get to the first appointment, and continued estimates to the next stage of proceedings. It will depend on your sols hourly rate and how many issues are in dispute.

I am very interested in this subject.Can anyone tell me why ancillary relief cost money,what does that entails?Why should a solicitor involve?Who is entitle to legal aid,not claiming any benefits but no money either to pay solicitor till after settlements

The costs are mainly in legal representation, although even if people represent themselves it's possible to be ordered to pay the other parties costs.

I'm not a lawyer so have no vested interest but over the years I've seen many more serious mistakes made by litigants in person than solicitors costing dearly. That's not to say in straight forward cases people can't represent themselves successfully, but most people divorcing don't have the time to read and understand their legal position eg what constitutes matrimonial property, how to value assets or the legal principles for sharing them, court procedures. Statistically those with representation are more likely to reach a settlement which is far better for long term family relationships.

Legal aid eligibility can be checked out on this calculator;-

www.communitylegaladvice.org.uk/en/legalaid/calculator.jsp

There are also schemes for funding fees for lawyers and I'll post a link below although it has to be said I know nothing about this scheme and I'm just using it as an example;-

www.heritable.co.uk/professionsfinance/feefundingforlawyers/