Court fees for AO

[luckylucky24]

We found out from fellow adopters from our prep course today that we have to pay £250 court fees for the AO to go to court.

Has anyone else had to pay this?
DH is fuming and saying it is deception as they have never mentioned this before. He is talking about instructing a solicitor for advice?

In our case we have been told to expect both parents to contest - separately. This could be another two sets of fees! Do we pay for them too??

Sorry we did not have to pay!

Our local authority forced us to apply for the AO rather than them go down the discharge of Care Order route. Because of very many issues of the local authority cocking up we also had to have legal representation throughout the adoption proceedings. However the LA did pay for our application, our medicals and our legal representation. I think this might be because they knew how much they'd already cocked up though rather than usual practice!

I keep saying- adopters are a fucking bargain to society. A bargain. £200 odd quid is a drop in the ocean compared to foster care for the LA. Damn right they should pay.

Fucking Amen to that.

Hang on, writing as an an experienced adopter and a foster carer, I reckon I've saved society about eleventy million quid over the past few years. I do resent this foster carers vs adopters mentality that seems so prevalent on this sub-board. Seriously, foster carers are not coining it, far from it - we do society's dirty work for a nominal fee. I've been a (single) adopter for eight years (without a penny's allowance) and a foster carer for four years (on a sub-zero hours fee for four years). Please treat us with respect; we're the people loving your children until they move home with you.

Moomin - I don't think anyone's said on this thread that FCs are making mega bucks? I read the comments that the £170 AO fee was cheap compared to the cost to the LA of fostering (I think that fee would probably cover just over one week's FC payment?) Personally I think that FC don't get paid enough considering the importance of the work they do and that adopters shouldn't have to pay the AO fee - these aren't mutually exclusive statements

OP - I honestly can't remember whether we paid or not, I think we might have done, I know we didn't claim anything back (we looked at claiming mileage for introductions, but the Byzantine process to do so put us off so much we decided to suck up the costs for the sake of our sanity). I remember our GP refused to charge for the medicals we had, though I know of others who had to pay for those.

Moomin no one is "adopters vs foster carers". The comparison here was because adopters don't cost an ongoing allowance, whereas foster carers do. Adoption costs less than long term foster care, in sterling. Are you disagreeing with that?

We have decided to just pay it and get it over with. I don't want to be asking permission in 6 months time to take my daughter away for a week.

We have seen the SW twice since placement and it hasn't been mentioned yet.