SA Financially Associated Person - Ineligible for Legal Aid SA?

[okanynameyouwishthen]

Hey guys, I'm wondering if anyone, specifically in SA I think, has history regarding Legal Aid SA funding where midway through matter circumstances changed and what was the outcome? I was forced into lodging with Family Court purely due to ex's absolute refusal to negotiate, speak to me and worst of all let our child remain as unaffected as possible by us splitting.

Legal Aid not being a free handout (to some folks but not all) I was forced to sign a caveat regarding my mortgaged home and 2 years past and 2 lawyers come and gone, I know I lose a significant piece of the leftover profit funds if or when selling the house. Yet my ex once moved to enlistment of lawyer to respond was basically given legal aid (bar the token $20-30 bare minimum contribution you immediately get asked to pay) as I mean she had no property, superannuation investments, shares etc. And she was in rental accommodation.

I have since found out she and daughter have broken lease and moved into her father's home with him. The home being his and he also owns a prime-mover/trailer rig. In my way of thinking, that means the ex has to inform Legal Aid SA that she changed address and more importantly her financial circumstances have changed. Have they?

I thought I read somewhere that parents were classed as persons reasonably expected to provide financial help. I would think that's a given that she has now moved back in with him. Especially seeing one of my provable many claims throughout this matter has been the mother's relentless financial abuse amongst many other facets of the broader domestic violence inflicted upon me for years yet I am the one "unofficially" on trial during many interim order hearings leading up to now by virtue of her shamelessly blindsiding me and seeing me served with a Intervention Order with false, ridiculous claims of past domestic violence and her sudden "fear for her life" state she now supposedly functions with day to day.

It is a disgrace that she can have got to this stage by creating a false sense of fear / apprehension with herself but more shockingly our innocent child. And at the end of the day, she may have been asked for $100 contribution towards fees that must by now be approaching 5 figures. As the system is an self-proclaimed adversarial system, I am fine with giving Legal Aid the heads up and then maybe when some ramifications of their actions effect them or at least make them stop and have to decide whether to commit to a personal and longer lasting action/outcome instead of her history thus far of filing perjured affidavits with no negative repercussions for her or her supporters and that basically tax-payers are footing the bill for her doing it and prolonging what was unwarranted litigation to begin with.

It sounded way clearer as I lay in bed pondering how to ask the question. Sorry but I'm sure you can still fathom my question: Ex moved in with her dad whom is very financially comfortable so should or will he be judged as being a financially associated person and so make her ineligible for Legal Aid funding from day she moved in with him?

Cheers

 

[Sarah J]

Hi there,

1. There is an obligation on legally aided clients to tell their lawyer and the Legal Services Commission of any changes in their financial circumstances. This includes changing house, decrease a financial burden etc. (see clause 6 of Legal Services Commission SA - Conditions of Legal Aid).

2. However, how is this going to help your case? Hurting your ex partner (and your child in the process) by making her pay more for legal representation does not directly help your case. It may even inflame the situation when it comes to having to sit down and negotiating with your ex partner about finances or custody arrangements. In family disputes, it's a lot harder reaching a mutually beneficial agreement when parties try and hurt each other rather than work with each other.

3. Obviously you can inform your ex partner about her obligation under the conditions of Legal Aid to inform the Commission and the Lawyer of her change in circumstances, but I would think twice about tipping the Commission off yourself or using this as a bargaining chip. Remember, you want to act in the best interests of your child. Having two parents that take stabs at one another, undermining one another is not in the interests of your child. While you may feel that this is what she is doing to you, just follow the court procedure, negotiate in good faith and act in your child's best interests. You want to present yourself in the best light possible. Perhaps you could re-focus on your case, re-focus on building your relationship with your child and think about re-building some kind of workable relationship with your ex partner (which will help your case indirectly).

 

[okanynameyouwishthen]

Appreciate your reply. I read all you wrote & you are 100% correct I reckon.Unfortunately that last sentence or two relates to a scenario far far far detached from the reality that is our matter. I FEEL that is what she is doing to me with every fiber of my being & sadistically reminded of the FACT every minute of every day.....but oh believe me I have daydreamed long & hard about the fantastical environment you write of.
Anyways the way I read the information & thought I would pose the question to members here if I was ,results in no hardship to her at all .....her dad being the financially associated person will be asked to sign a caveat assuring LSC get reimbursed when he sells his house or truck......or maybe get their combined morals jolted enough to come to the negotiating table where even still after the lowest of low gutter tactics they've not skipped a beat inflicting this insanity on innocent parties-none more so than our confused child-there has always been seats with their names on.
I mean no disrespect & I do appreciate you appear educated within this field but I must state - it is not merely some myth that Neanderthal like knuckle draggers conjure up with no real desire to be let back in our children's life to love & care for them & try to spend the rest of our lives doing all we can to at least attempt to parent well forever sorry that we played a 50% part in shattering the normality of simply living in the family home with a mummy and a daddy. Believe me , it's an unfortunate but very real fact that there exists a shameful gaping wound in this system that allows & in some respects encourages an abusive selfish narcissistic woman to disgustingly work that to their sole advantage-none else s. This is the text book play by play Domestic Violence method in all its man hating biased glory. I too would love to be on the outer looking in as you are , believe me .
I thank-you for your reply though,sincerely
ok.

 

[AllForHer]

Mate, I sincerely hope you don't take this attitude into the court with you, because if that's the case, I have to say very frankly that it's obvious why your case isn't going so well.

Instead of holding your ex 100% responsible and trying to 'get even', why don't you just focus instead on building your case properly? Rise above the bullsh*t and act the dignified parent, don't give her ammunition against you. Dwelling on the 'injustice' of it all and brooding is basically giving her what she wants, so why do it?

I'm a woman and my husband and I spent the first year of our relationship self-representing in court against his ex-wife - also a savage, jealous and spiteful individual who fabricated incredulous lies, filed domestic violence orders to try and support her case and withheld their daughter's time with her dad. But he won.

There is nothing at all that the judges haven't seen before, and when it comes to final hearing, everything she has done will come undone if you build your case right. You must be able to cross-examine so the truth comes out without you incriminating yourself, so learn to cross-examine instead of dwelling on your contempt. If you remain this full of loathing toward her actions, that's going to show in court, and it will tear your case apart.

The system is slow, complex and of course, flawed, but it will always be that way, so you have to learn to work with what it is, rather than brooding over what it isn't. Men have a better chance now than they have ever had before of gaining custody of their kids, but you must present like a father who can rise above the problems between you and your ex and put the kids first.

I don't see you doing this in any of your posts. They're focused completely on your ex, instead of on your kids or your case. I advise a change of attitude, first and foremost.

 

[okanynameyouwishthen]

WTF !? I'm asking a question regarding when a lying manipulative child stealer can be told to stop sponging off the tax payers of this country & be told " pull up lass,you want a legal mouthpiece to continue your abuse of your ex & child,someones got to pay." As for your hasty accusations toward me I assure you I do know the difference between sitting on my pc posting a question to a forum & walking into the pompous court arena for another humiliating lesson of elitism.If you noticed in my post I made reference to the fact of accepting I was half to blame for a failed relationship .What you have no idea about is the history of that relationship & whilst I congratulate your hubby & you I would be amazed if his past was a pinch of what I finally found the courage to say " no more to". Before you jump down my throat & label me selfish for that it was actually an action done with complete acceptance that for our child to have any real life & possibility of having a father figure in her life I had to put an end to us as a family unit living under the same roof.
What I was unaware of at the time was the extent of "Emily List" damage & the depths the corrupt feminist movement had seeped into an already political legal system.
Funny thing about texts & words etc.,maybe it is solely my words & posts but context & meaning can be misread & your labeling of me as blaming in ALL my posts my ex 100% & wanting to " get even " is case example of that.
I have inquired here regarding prosecutions role in magistrate court intervention orders as lucky old me got slandered & shafted in there as a warm up to FC & I am forced to fight a case in there that I am not after getting even.I can honestly state I would be ecstatic if the law just ruled on law & not gender laws.I'm sorry if you don't subscribe to the very real fact that that's what has been allowed to occur due in part to people just blindly getting sodomized by it .As you state it is indeed a flawed system & it literally sickens me to be a part of it with all it's high brow theatrics.You say you have to learn to work with it & I say I am doing just that.Why would I not use a new found tool to possibly force her to negotiate by cutting off her supply of legal representation which as I alluded to earlier will be a definite consideration if for the first time in 2 years she has to weigh up the lasting repercussions of her taking this stance .How ironic as a tax payer I am theoretically propping up her legal reps against myself.To clarify you believe I should not avail myself to cutting off her access to legal aid whilst I contemplate throwing 1000's more edging closer to poverty so I can claim to be the bigger person?

 

[AllForHer]

Look at this situation in perspective - in terms of whether or not your proposed action supports, or diminishes your case.

Say you tip off Legal Aid and they withdraw her funding. Good for you, at least you know your taxpayer dollars aren't going to her, they're going to some other narcissistic witch putting her ex through the same anguish as what you're going through (except you don't know the kids said funding is helping).

She either pays for the solicitor herself now, or self-represents.

If she gets a solicitor, the kids go without because the funds aren't going to your kids, they're going to her lawyer's kids.

If she self-represents, that makes things doubly challenging for your judge because he now has no barrister authorities at all in the lobby laying down the hard line to get her to agree. It's now a literal contest between two parents to see who can argue the best and your taxpayer dollars are instead paying for the court's time as it trawls through prolonged proceedings because the lack of expertise means everything takes twice as long.

And when your ex raises that you had her legal aid funding removed, as she inevitably will as a self-represented litigant, how are you going to explain that you were acting in the best interests of the kids? That your intention was for their benefit, and not just for your own benefit of feeling good about taking something away from the mother?

You might justify your intended action as 'being lawful', but the court will see it the same way everyone else sees it - a quest for vindication.

 

[okanynameyouwishthen]

"A quest for vindication "? Spoken like a true obligatory agent to the bar......or perhaps with future aspirations to be ?
I assure you my only" Quest" is to provide my parental responsibilities to a child I had equal role in creating & unfortunately due to her age she is unable to ask that her rights & wishes to be allowed a father figure in her upbringing be demanded.
Tell me if you will,are you saying that a person who has completely scoffed at all & every civil attempt to sit as 2 responsible adults to work out a fair proposal to afford an innocent child her obvious desire to be raised with the 2 most important people in her young life,who then goes & employs gutter tactics to make sure the other parent is hamstrung from the get go but she is " being lawful ".
Then after forcing litigation by her steadfast refusal to remain out of the cesspit arena & not having to pay for services to accomplish her warped ideology whilst seemingly at ease with the extortion like bleeding of money from the father of that child-that you are correct in that those dollars could/should be spent on said child else sign a caveat on the house.
I am confused as to why LSC would bother printing in their agreement to fund contract that a recipient must inform them if circumstances change regarding an ability to fund your own case that you have demanded be ruled upon by the courts employing legal teams to spew your lies for you.
I never posted I wish to demand she self represent but knowing her as I do & by the utter refusal of any department,court,prosecutor or judge to hold her accountable for documented failures to simply tell the truth I can say with total confidence she will not alert LSC of her changes.
So, what to do ?
Continue as a SRL against a nasty ex without a damn of her child's stated wish to remain connected with her daddy all the while by getting shafted by a team of legals that she feels she is not only entitled to but entitled to at no cost to her.
From the past experiences meted out by her legals I am well aware of the theatrics & chess like manoeuvrings & tactics employed- as sickening as they are ,I am now expected to simply ignore the news I have been made aware of & what ? - The court will reward me for being the better man ?
My god ! I am still waiting to be recognized as being human within the damn place let alone a good one.
Believe me these types of grubby actions are alien to me but as we are now 2 years post separation -that I had to persevere with with the intention of giving our child a mum & dad as 2 individual free thinking entities instead of what she was expected to continue on with as was I - that of a obsessive & totalitarian enmeshed mum with a pussy whipped sidekick whose input was as ridiculed as it was unwelcome.
My thinking was IF an instance of accountability was to this stage not going to be asked despite an endless succession of alarms & as unnatural & unnecessary as it may be,that maybe just maybe the concept of her continued insistence to remain within the system suddenly having to have some real consequences attached such as her dad having to place a caveat on his home might just rouse her out of this insane expectation that I should just walk away & leave her to it & negotiate a fair outcome for all involved.
Isn't that what this system is designed for ? As in it's an adversarial conflict. I can assure you at every single appearance I have requested we be sent to any type of mediation & to do so by any means demanded of me to appease the ex's " being lawful " feigned fear for her safety-shuttled,phone or bucket on head & shackled ! ( me not her )
Whilst I welcome the input I simply ask you not think you have me worked out......I have enough of that to deal with throughout this insidious nightmare.

 

[AllForHer]

Well, if you think you've got the system all figured out and that this will surely help your case, then by all means, proceed. Nobody here is stopping you.

 

[okanynameyouwishthen]

I assure you I am nowhere near thinking I have the system figured out. I'm sorry if it offends you that I personally gain a minute therapeutic benefit by frequenting these forums seeking the odd answer or opinion to constant questions & thoughts that are in my head from the minute I wake until the moment comes that I eventually drift off into another night of interrupted sleep-& where even then sometimes theres no let up! As i said before, I congratulate you for journeying through this horrendous trek with your new partner & his child(ren).