A child tax credit and a solicitor\'s bill

Hi,
I am in the process of divorce for 2 years. I have got 2 children (4 and 11years old) and my husband does not help financially at all. After filling E-form my solicitors did not pointed out that I am eligible for the Child tax credit and as a result I lost almost £3000. I wonder if I can claim that money to be deducted from my solicitor’s bill?

Many thanks for your advice.

I am not sure why you think it was the solicitor's responsibility. Child tax credits are well advertised. There are masses of reminders every June and July to renew the claim.

it is possible to have tax credits backdated for a period of 3 months but you'd have to convince them that your circumstances haven't changed since then.

If you are asking can you demand that because your solicitor didn't tell you you're entitled to tax credits, can you somehow switch the responsiblity for payment onto the missed tax credits the answer is no. It is not the solicitor's responsibility to advise you of what you might be entitled to - working out benefit entitlement is up to you! If you are struggling, your local CAB office can do a benefit check with you to make sure that everything is in place. Whilst you wait for an appointment, you could try www.entitledto.co.uk.

Do HMRC automatically send out an application when a child is registered. My kids were already born when ctc came in..
Don't they know for CB when a child is registered.
I just wonder why fusca was applying anyway.

If you have an existing claim for CTC that goes from joint to single because of separation, you need to tell them ASAP otherwise they will stop the joint claim, demand repayment and not start the single claim until the date they were informed (in writing!) with a possible backdate of 93 days but no more. Reminders about tax credits only come once a year and it is up to you to know you are supposed to notify changes within 30 days ... not top of your list when you are in a state of distress with kids to care for .

I found this out to my cost . My ex had always done the CTC paperwork. Despite years of trying to sort it out - they acknowledge telephoned notification but would not start single claim for that date and failed to send paperwork for 12 months .. have ended up abandoning the attempt. Even my MP got nowhere. Just sent round in circles in the system.

It may also be that the household income in this case was too great for CTC to be relevant until Fusca was separated.

I agree though that it was not the solicitor's responsibility to raise this - although it is odd that it did not come up when finances were reviewed.

Hadenoughnow