Legal costs allowance

Currey v Currey CA TLR 3 November

Where one party seeks periodical payments to cover their legal costs during the continuance of ancillary relief proceedings, the overarching inquiry should be into whether the applicant can demonstrate that he or she could not reasonably procure legal advice and representation by any other means. In the present case, it was the wife who was rich and the husband who was relatively impoverished. He sought funds with which not primarily to pursue the wife, but to defend himself against an application of profound importance to him which she brought against him. Where one spouse could demonstrate that he or she required extra legal services, did not qualify for legal aid and had insufficient money of their own, the court has jurisdiction to award a costs allowance as appropriate by way of addition to the periodic payments, until the end of the financial dispute resolution. The court refused the wife’s appeal against the judge’s order increasing the periodical payments payable by her to her husband, by £10,000 a month for four months as a costs allowance to procure continued legal advice and representation until the end of the FDR appointment. Whenever a court decided to make a costs allowance, it ought to proceed with a judicious mixture of realism and caution as to both its amount and its duration.