The short answer
Legal aid for a family solicitor was withdrawn for most private family cases on 1 April 2013. It is still available if you get through a gateway, principally evidence of domestic abuse or a child protection concern, and in care proceedings. Getting through the gateway is not enough on its own: you must also pass the means test and the merits test.
Key points
- An ordinary divorce or financial argument, with no abuse and no risk to a child, is not funded.
- The domestic abuse gateway is real and it is wider than people think. There is no time limit on the evidence.
- Evidence alone does not qualify you. You need the gateway and the means test and the merits test.
- Care proceedings brought by a local authority are funded for parents without any means or merits test at all.
- Unlike mediation legal aid, solicitor funding can be recovered from what you keep at the end, through the statutory charge.
- If you are at immediate risk, funding can be granted urgently and the finances checked afterwards.
Urgent help
If you are in danger, this comes first
Nothing on this page matters more than your safety. None of these services will ask you to prove anything before they help you.
- In an emergency, call 999. If you cannot speak, dial 999, listen to the operator, and press 55 when prompted. That is the silent solution, and it tells the police you need help without you having to say a word
- National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge, free and open 24 hours: 0808 2000 247
- Men’s Advice Line, for men experiencing abuse: 0808 801 0327
- Galop, for LGBT+ people experiencing abuse: 0800 999 5428
There is no court fee to apply for a non-molestation or occupation order, and legal aid for a solicitor is still available to victims of domestic abuse who are financially eligible.
When is legal aid available for a family solicitor?
Three things have to be true at once. People usually know about one of them and assume it is the whole test.
Your case is one of the kinds still in scope. In private family law that means evidence of domestic abuse, or a child protection concern. Care proceedings are in scope automatically.
Your income and capital are inside the published limits. Being a victim of abuse does not exempt you from this.
The case is worth funding, and what you stand to gain justifies the cost of getting it.
The most common disappointment on this subject is someone with strong evidence of abuse who is turned down on income, or someone on a very low income whose case is simply out of scope. Both are refusals, and neither means the person was not believed.
What are the different levels of help?
Legal aid is not one thing. It comes in levels, and which one you get changes what your solicitor is allowed to do and whether the statutory charge bites.
| Level | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Legal Help | Initial advice and assistance. Letters, negotiation, telling you where you stand. No court representation |
| Help at Court | A solicitor speaking for you at a specific hearing, without taking over the whole case |
| Family Help (Lower) | Negotiation and helping you settle without proceedings |
| Family Help (Higher) | Work within issued proceedings, short of a final contested hearing |
| Legal Representation | Full representation, including a final hearing |
| Help with Family Mediation | Legal advice supporting mediation, and turning a mediated agreement into a court order. Covered on the mediation page |
The distinction matters for one reason above all: Legal Help, Help at Court and Family Help (Lower) are outside the statutory charge on their own, but are pulled into it if your case later escalates to Family Help (Higher) or full representation.
What is the domestic abuse gateway, and what evidence is accepted?
If you have been a victim of domestic abuse, private family law legal aid is still available to you. That is the main route back into funding after 2013, and it exists precisely because Parliament accepted that some people cannot safely negotiate for themselves.
Abuse here does not mean only physical violence. It covers coercive and controlling behaviour, emotional abuse and economic abuse, and the correct term is domestic abuse rather than domestic violence.
The accepted evidence is a published list, and it is broader than most people expect. There is no longer any time limit. The old five year rule was removed on 8 January 2018. If you were told years ago that what happened to you was too long ago to count, that advice is out of date.
The figures
Evidence accepted for the domestic abuse gateway
The list is broader than most people expect, and there is no longer any time limit on how old the evidence can be. The old five year rule was removed on 8 January 2018. If you were told years ago that your evidence was too old, that advice is out of date.
- A non-molestation order, occupation order or other protective injunction, including an undertaking
- A Domestic Abuse Protection Notice or Order
- A police caution, arrest, charge, conviction or bail conditions
- A letter or report from a GP, nurse, midwife or other health professional
- A health professional’s referral to a domestic abuse service
- A letter from a MARAC, an IDVA or an ISVA
- A letter from a domestic abuse support organisation or a refuge, including one refusing admission because it was full
- A letter from a local authority, a housing association or a housing officer
- A finding of fact made by a court
- Evidence of economic abuse
Evidence on its own does not get you legal aid. It opens the door. You must also be financially eligible and your case must pass the merits test. Where someone is at immediate risk, funding can be granted urgently and the finances checked afterwards.
Source: Legal Aid Agency, evidence requirements for private family law matters. Time limit removed: GOV.UK, 8 January 2018. Checked 5 August 2026.
What about cases involving children and local authorities?
If a local authority brings care or supervision proceedings, parents and anyone with parental responsibility get legal aid without a means test and without a merits test. It is automatic. Do not let anyone tell you to check whether you can afford it first.
In private cases, legal aid is also available where a child is at risk of abuse, through the child protection gateway, which works in a similar way to the abuse gateway but on evidence about the child.
Special guardianship was brought back into scope on 1 May 2023 for prospective special guardians and for respondents, which reversed part of the 2013 position.
Legal aid for child arrangements cases goes through where the line falls.
How are the means and merits tests applied here?
The means test uses the same published limits as the rest of civil legal aid. Your gross income, your disposable income after allowances, and your capital are all assessed. If you live with a partner their finances count too, unless they are the other side in your case.
The merits test asks whether the case is worth funding. In broad terms: is there a reasonable prospect of achieving something worthwhile, and does what you might gain justify what it would cost the public purse. A case that is very likely to succeed but achieves almost nothing can fail it, and so can a very weak case with a lot at stake.
The figures
Legal aid means test limits, from 6 April 2026
These apply to controlled work and to family mediation. They are the same test.
| Test | Limit |
|---|---|
| Gross monthly income | £2,657 |
| Extra allowed for the 5th and each further child | £222 |
| Disposable monthly income | £733 |
| Disposable capital | £8,000 |
| Allowance for a partner | £237.25 |
| Allowance for each dependant, any age | £381.86 |
| Employment expenses, if you are employed | £45 |
| Housing cap, if you have no partner or dependants | £545 |
In force from 6 April 2026. Source: Legal Aid Agency, civil legal aid eligibility keycard 62. Checked 5 August 2026. Limits change without much notice, so please confirm the current position before relying on this.
The figures
Assets you are arguing about can be ignored, up to £100,000
This is the rule that surprises people most. If the house or the savings are the very thing in dispute, the Legal Aid Agency can leave a large part of them out of the calculation. It is called the subject matter of the dispute disregard.
| Rule | How it works |
|---|---|
| Maximum ignored | £100,000 |
| What it applies to | Capital only. Income can never be treated this way |
| What counts as in dispute | An asset actually being claimed in the proceedings, not simply one you own |
| A jointly owned asset in dispute | You are treated as owning half of it |
Where the family home is in dispute, three things are done in this order: the mortgage is taken off to find the equity, then up to £100,000 of your share of that equity is ignored as the disputed asset, then a further equity disregard of up to £100,000 is applied to whatever is left.
Source: Lord Chancellor’s guidance on determining financial eligibility for controlled work and family mediation, section 7.4. That is the right source for mediation. The Means Assessment Guidance covers certificated work and says so. Checked 5 August 2026.
Will you have to contribute?
Possibly, and at the moment the honest answer is that nobody can tell you reliably from a website.
Historically, people above a certain disposable income paid a monthly contribution towards their legal aid, and people with capital above a threshold paid a lump sum. Those provisions were removed from the regulations in June 2025 as a temporary measure, and have not been reinstated. But the Legal Aid Agency’s own current eligibility card still prints the contribution bands.
The law and the official card disagree, so we are not going to publish a figure. Ask the firm what applies on the day you apply. They deal with this daily and they will know.
None of this affects mediation, which has never been contributory.
Who actually does the work, and how do you find a provider?
Only a firm holding a legal aid contract with the Legal Aid Agency can take a legally aided case. Most family firms do not hold one, and the number that do has fallen sharply. Between 2014 and 2022 the proportion of firms doing legally aided financial provision work fell from around 72 per cent to around 37 per cent.
Use the official directory rather than searching: Find a legal aid adviser on GOV.UK lets you search by area and category of law. Ring more than one. Contracts have capacity limits, and a firm turning you away is often about their caseload rather than about your case.
How to find a solicitor with a legal aid contract has more on what to ask when you call.
What is and is not covered by the funding
Covered: your solicitor’s time, a barrister where one is needed, court advocacy at the level you are funded for, and necessary expert reports where the Agency agrees to them.
Not covered: court fees, which are a separate scheme called Help with Fees; your ex’s costs if an order is made against you; and anything outside the scope of your certificate. If your funding is for child arrangements, it does not stretch to your financial settlement.
The figures
Family court fees in England and Wales
| Application | Fee |
|---|---|
| Apply for a divorce, dissolution or nullity | £628 |
| Financial order by consent, including a clean break | £62 |
| Contested financial order, the Form A application | £321 |
| Child arrangements, the C100 | £270 |
| General application within proceedings, D11 or C2 | £195 |
| Non-molestation or occupation order, the FL401 | No fee |
| Domestic Abuse Protection Order applied for by a victim | No fee |
There is no court fee to apply for a non-molestation or occupation order. Protection from abuse does not cost money at the court counter. You may pay for legal help to prepare it, and that is what legal aid can cover.
Help with Fees is separate from legal aid and can reduce or remove a court fee. Many people who do not qualify for legal aid do qualify for Help with Fees.
In force from 13 July 2026. Sources: the Ministry of Justice announcement and the fees order, SI 2026/642. Free applications: GOV.UK, injunctions: protection from domestic abuse. Checked 5 August 2026.
Important information
Solicitor legal aid can be a loan rather than a gift. Where you recover or keep money or property because of a funded case, the statutory charge lets the Legal Aid Agency recover what it spent out of what you end up with. In a financial remedy case that often means the house.
Repayment can sometimes be postponed where you are keeping the property as your home, but interest is charged on the postponed amount. Maintenance payments and certain other awards are exempt from the charge, and it can be waived where enforcing it would cause real hardship.
Ask your solicitor to explain the statutory charge before you accept a certificate, and ask them to estimate what it might come to. It is the question people most wish they had asked.
None of this applies to mediation legal aid, which is never recovered.
What happens if your circumstances change?
Tell your provider straight away. Legal aid is assessed on your position as it is, and it is reassessed if that changes.
The obvious trap is coming into money during the case, including money from the settlement itself. A win can move you over the capital limit and end your funding for the rest of the case. It is not a reason to conceal anything: failing to report a change can mean the whole certificate is revoked and the costs become yours.
What if you are refused?
Find out which part failed, because the three parts have different answers.
- Refused on scope, meaning your case is not the kind that is funded. There is no appeal on that, but check whether you have gateway evidence you did not think counted, and look at mediation legal aid, which has no scope problem.
- Refused on means. Check the arithmetic. Allowances for a partner and dependants, housing costs, and the disregard for assets you are actually arguing about all change the answer, and they are frequently missed.
- Refused on merits. This one can be appealed to an independent funding adjudicator. Ask your provider to explain the route and the deadline.
Refused legal aid: your options and any right to review sets out each of those properly.
Jess’s view
“People assume that proving what happened to them is the hard part, and that everything follows once they have. In practice they get through the gateway and fall at the means test, which nobody warned them about. Knowing that in advance does not make it fairer, but it stops it landing as a judgement on whether they were believed.”
Jess Knauf, Director of Client Strategy at Family Legal Ltd
Where to go next
- Evidence of domestic abuse for legal aid, the full accepted list and how to get each kind.
- Legal aid for financial settlements: the honest answer.
- Finding a solicitor with a legal aid contract.
- Legal aid for mediation, which is means tested only and is a different scheme entirely.
- Urgent help, if you are not safe.