For legal aid to be granted to hire a car the following tests must be satisfied:
- the applicant has been provided aid for the substantive matter, and
- the practitioner is required to travel, and
- hiring a car is the most cost effective/practical method of travel, and
- the distance to be travelled by the service provider is more than a 35 kilometres single round trip from the service provider’s office to the location (court, tribunal, conference venue, home visit, site visit etc).
Requirements
Extension of aid requests received from preferred suppliers or in-house practitioners
Practitioners seeking an extension of aid to hire a car, must electronically submit an extension for aid request via the Grants Online system along with the quote to hire the car prior to incurring the costs.
Invoices verifying car hire fees must be retained on the practitioners file for audit purposes.
Grant(s) of aid
The grants of aid to hire a car are as follows:
- Criminal law
- COT - solicitors
- BOT - counsel
- Family law
- FOT - solicitors
- BOT - counsel
- Civil law
- GOT - solicitors
- BOT - counsel
Extension(s) of aid
Travel expenses are not payable in conjunction with car hire. Fuel costs and parking expenses are claimable and receipts must be retained on file for audit purposes.
The grant of aid for car parking expenses is PARK.
Travel time is claimable and the grant of aid for travel time is TT.
Review of decisions
A decision to refuse legal aid for this type of matter may be appealed to the external review officer (refer to review of decisions).