Estimator: civil legal aid

This estimator helps you work out if you are likely to qualify financially for civil legal aid.

Once you complete these fields, an estimate will automatically be provided.

Before you start: Do you automatically qualify financially?

You must know the type of any benefit you receive to find out if you automatically qualify. You can usually see the type of benefit you are receiving by checking your most recent benefit award letter.

If you do not have an up to date award letter or you are in any doubt about which benefit you receive you should contact your local benefits office.

You automatically qualify if you are in receipt of, or included in your partner’s award of, any of the following benefits when we get your application:

Income Support
Income based Jobseekers Allowance
Income related Employment and Support Allowance
Universal Credit

That means you will not have to pay a financial contribution towards your case if your application is successful.

You do not automatically qualify if:

you or your partner are in receipt of one of the benefits above but the award did not include your resources as a couple
you receive one of the benefits listed above but our regulations state that other people’s financial resources need to be included in our calculation of your financial eligibility. Your solicitor can explain if this applies to your case or you can contact us directly on 0131 560 2164.

"*" indicates required fields

Step 1: Do you automatically qualify financially?

Do you receive, or are you included in your partner’s award of, any of the following benefits:

Income Support
Income based Jobseekers' Allowance
Income related Employment and Support Allowance
Universal Credit

Please select from the following:*

Yes

Based on your choice above, you may automatically qualify financially for civil legal aid.

Next steps You can contact a solicitor who can help you with your legal aid application using our Find a Solicitor page - please see section below.

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 civil legal aid.

You can also check your financial eligibility by calling our Financial Assessment Unit on 0131 560 2164 (open Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5pm).

The amount you may have to pay may also depend on a number of factors such as:

the type of case you are applying for
the case's complexity
whether it is likely to be contested by your opponent

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.

Do you have a partner or spouse?*

Yes

How many dependants (adults and/or children) live with you?

Step 3: Your household’s total disposable income

Work out what you expect your total income (after tax and national insurance deductions) to be in the next year - this is your net income. Then tell us your outgoings.

If you are residing with a spouse/partner - insert joint income and expenditure.

Please enter '0' if you do not receive an income or don't have any outgoings. The amount in the "total disposable income" box will be calculated automatically.

Help / Information

Income

We calculate your income on what you and your spouse or partner, if you have one, can expect to receive in the year from the date we receive your application.

You must include:

Earnings after Income tax and National insurance deductions
Drawings or profits from business
State benefits
Maintenance payments you receive from either an individual or through the Child Maintenance Service
Tax credits
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

Round up or down to the nearest pound.

If your income is paid weekly multiply the amounts by 52 to calculate the annual figure.

If your income is paid monthly multiply the amounts by 12 to calculate the annual figure.

If your income is paid 4 weekly multiply the amounts by 13 to calculate the annual figure.

Outgoings

We estimate your outgoings based on what you and your spouse or partner, if you have one, are likely to pay in the year from the date we receive your application.

You should include the following:

Maintenance payments you make
Child care expenses if you work
Travel costs to and from work
Housing costs – mortgage or rent (less any housing benefit), insurance policy payments linked to your home and council tax
Loan repayments
Credit/Store cards – only calculate based on the minimum amount you are liable to pay

Do not include what you pay for gas, electricity, phone bills, clothing and food for your household. A standard allowance which is set by the government each year will be deducted when we complete the calculation at the end of this process.

Round up or down to the nearest pound.

If your outgoings are paid weekly multiply the amounts by 52 to calculate the annual figure.

If your outgoings are paid monthly multiply the amounts by 12 to calculate the annual figure

If your outgoings are paid 4 weekly multiply the amounts by 13 to calculate the annual figure.

Your net annual income

Your annual outgoings

Your annual allowances

This is calculated automatically from the number of dependants in Step 2.

Total disposable income

Is calculated automatically as you enter income and outgoings.

Step 4: Capital

We calculate your capital and that of your spouse or partner as at the date of your application.

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 240 2082 to check if you should include the capital in this calculation.

Help / Information

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 240 2082 to check if you should include the capital in this calculation.

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.

Total Disposable Capital*

Enter '0' if you do not have any capital

Step 5: Estimate

Once you complete these fields, an estimate will be provided:

Net annual income
Annual outgoings
Total disposable capital

It is likely you do NOT qualify for civil legal aid.

based on your income and your capital.

It is likely you do NOT qualify for civil legal aid.

based on your income.

It is likely you do NOT qualify for civil legal aid.

based on your capital.

You are likely to qualify for civil legal aid

You may not have to pay a contribution.

You are likely to qualify for civil legal aid

You may have to pay a contribution based on income of £TBC

Normally you will pay this in TBC monthly instalments of TBC

You are likely to qualify for civil legal aid

You are likely to have to pay a contribution based on capital of £TBC, which is normally paid in one lump sum.

You are likely to qualify for civil legal aid

You may have to pay a contribution based on income of £TBC

Normally you will pay this in TBC monthly instalments of TBC

You are likely to have to pay a contribution based on capital of £TBC, which is normally paid in one lump sum.

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 civil legal aid. You can also check your financial eligibility by calling our Financial Assessment Unit on 0131 560 2164 (open Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5pm).

The amount you may have to pay may also depend on a number of factors:

such as the type of case you are applying for
the case's complexity
whether it is likely to be contested by your opponent

You can discuss these factors further with your solicitor.

You will also have to meet other tests relating to your case before you can be granted civil legal aid - these are explained in our leaflet Civil legal aid - information for applicants - see our leaflets in the New to Legal Aid section.

You can contact a solicitor who can help you with your legal aid 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 should 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 an uncompiled 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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total_disposable_income_calc

Subtracts allowances and expenses from income.

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disposable_income_scale

This must be sorted in numeric order by Label. (click "show values" if you cannot see labels) The Label represents the maximum disposable income within a band. The value is the % contribution they'll have to pay as a result of their income that falls within that band. Anyone with income higher than last label will not qualify for assistance. * will only work if disposable_income_scale is applied as a CSS class in the advanced tab *

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instalment_payment_scale

In this table, the label is the contribution the user will be making. The value is the number of monthly repyaments when the total contribution is within this band.

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contribution

This is calculated out (in jQuery) using disposable income scale. Do not edit, ever.

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income_threshold_measurement

If this is a positive value, then the user will not qualify for legal aid (based on income).

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capital_threshold_measurement_upper

If this is a positive value (their capital exceeds the maximum threshold) , the user will be disqualified from legal aid on the basis of capital.

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capital_threshold_measurement_lower

If this is a negative value, the user will not be disqualified for legal aid on capital grounds. If this is a positive value, this is how much they'll have to pay towards legal aid, as long as they do not have a positive capital_thereshold_measurement_upper value.

Find a solicitor

Use our Solicitor Finder tool to search for registered solicitors who may be able to provide advice and represent you in your case.