Factsheet 2 – Low income & non-passporting benefits

DOCUMENTS NEEDED TO MAKE A LEGAL AID APPLICATION

You will be given only one opportunity to present all documents needed for your application. A decision on your application will be provided within 10 working days. Do not contact Direct Mediation Services within this period.

If you wish to have this information in a PDF format, please click here.

What is a low income?

• A combined household income, from work, benefits or any other source, of less than £2657 per month
• This means that if you are living with a new partner, we will need to make an assessment of their income
• Just because you get less than £2657 a month, you do not automatically qualify for Legal Aid
• Capital and savings will also be taken into account – if you have more than £8000 in savings, you will not qualify

Evidence

You need to send the following evidence for your Legal Aid application:

1. Bank statements – the last four weeks’ If you have other individual or joint bank accounts, you will also need to provide statements for these for the same period. (See Photo A for an example.)
2. In employment – payslips for the last four weeks or one month. (See Photo B for an example.)

There are only four ways to submit your evidence

EXAMPLES OF EVIDENCE

Photo A – Bank statements

The easiest way to get your bank statements for the last four weeks is to go to your bank and ask them to print them out. If you have more than one bank and/or building society account, we need statements for all of these as well. This includes joint accounts

You may also be able to download them as a PDF

We need to see clearly:

1. The four edges of the page
2. Full pages
3. Your full name
4. Your full address
5. Account number
6. Period covering the last four weeks
7. Page number sequence 1, 2, 3 …

DO NOT SEND SCREENSHOTS OF YOUR ONLINE ACCOUNT FROM YOUR MOBILE

Photo B – Payslips

We need to see clearly:

1. The four edges of the page
2. Full pages
3. Your full name
4. Your national insurance number
5. Period covering the last four weeks or one month