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Son has been on legal aid up until now as he has been an apprentice but has now changed to a full time job. Not earning massive amounts but Legal Aid won't take into consideration his board and lodgings or his travel costs, so have now stopped his certificate.
Just got a price back from his solicitors for him to pay to go to court for a pre-hearing and a 3 day Finding of Fact hearing and they want £1,000 + VAT (may be more) for the solicitors to do their bit - letter writing and telephone calls and council want £3,500 + VAT.
Has anyone ever managed to claim money back from their ex for costs?
The solicitors instructed a barrister to represent him, so the solicitors want their fees for doing naff all and the council (barristers and court I presume) want their fees too.
He feels that he needs representation at this stage as the ex has accused him with intent to physically and sexually abuse the child, so can't really represent himself at the moment. Once this has been cleared up, then hopefully he can become a LIP and self-represent.
Ah the bar council...I was thinking the local council...you know, the ones that charge us ridiculous amounts of council tax! Doh!
How long til the hearing Cuddles?
Counsel 😛
It almost is incentive to go back to be an apprentice. Ridiculous system!
I am questioning though my understanding is that the findings of fact are based on a probability basis. I am not sure what it really amounts to in the end. If he is having unsupervised and unrestricted access at present it is plain nonesense and should be no point having one. Different story I guess if he is not.
The rates are not too bad for a 3 days hearing.......most barristers in London charge around 2000-6000 per day. The other thing to bear in mind is that once you start with them you feel compelled to continue, thinking you are likely to lose out if you dont. I can see the rationale for having a barrister but if I had my time again I would have self repped.
Unless complete unreasonable behaviour you are unlikely to claim the costs back.
fingers crossed for you and your son
Excuse the spelling. 🙂 :}
No, he is not seeing the child at all and hasn't for over a year (18 months for us to see our granddaughter). We might have a direct access barrister on board but are just waiting for a price. We were asked what was set out in the schedule for the finding of fact hearing and were more or less laughed at when we said the ex's speculation. No evidence whatsoever to back up her lies. Barrister could not believe that it has been allowed to get this far.
Need to keep positive and hope that beginning of next year, this whole year will be behind us as he first went to court at the beginning of May and we can then look forward to having the little one in our lives. Will keep you updated as much as I am allowed to.
When is the next hearing.......
If money starts to get tight then consider a McKenzie friend with self repping.
I do not recall all the ins and outs but a 1year is crazy. Have SS or police been involved?
Has it gone to a fact finding without a section 7...perhaps recap and I can try and rattle my brain.
In answer to your original question, it is extremely rare to get costs back from the other party in family cases - the only time it is likely to happen is where one party is maliciously causing cases to go before the court (I can't remember the exact terms).
I did actually try to get costs against my ex as she consistently failed to comply with court requests, therefore doubling the number of times that we had to go to court, and had costs against her reserved until the final case. The judge ruled that "she was acting reasonably for a person in her circumstances, namely as an alcoholic in denial", so dismissed my claim for costs - that was the only time I lost against her, and it cost me about £4k in legal costs for that hearing alone :boohoo:
Thank you actd. She has delayed the cases every time that we attend. When they are given a time of 11 am to go into court and they need to be there an hour before to speak with their barristers, they don't actually end up in court until around 2 pm because they keep delaying. Every time the judge has been angry but is doing nothing about it. On legal aid, it didn't really matter as he wasn't paying except for his contributions but now he has to pay, he will have to pay per hour. These delays will increase what he has to pay.
Perhaps a letter to the judge pointing out that the constant delays by the other party are placing a heavy financial burden on you that is causing great stress to tour situation.
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