Who paid your court fees?

[ChoccyJules]

I was under the impression from something I once read that the agency tends to pay for the AO? From reading threads on AUK it would seem not necessarily.
Does anyone know if there are good practice guidelines (or similar) on this?
Our two agencies (AC is from another authority) each expect the other to pay. We can afford it, I would just like to know what Should be happening.

We paid it. LA made clear they wouldn't be paying for it because of budget cuts.

The placing authority paid for ours last year .

The LA where the child was paid.

We paid it...they wouldn't!

We paid and placing authority refunded. Your local LA or VA get a lot of money for the adoption, so I'd push it. If placing LA usually pay, they can't really get away say no to you, if they don't I'd imagine you could nag your agency into it.

I think its bloody ridiculous (given the enormous amount that adopters save the state) that a the relatively modest cost of things like court fees, medical costs etc are passed onto adopters- it creates needless barriers and friction.

We've been told we have to pay like PP says it's ridiculous

Do they still have a 'finders fee' ie our LA gets a payment from DD's LA? Basically we have already saved the placing authority a fortune in fostering payments and if our LA has had a payment, there are grounds for either of them to pay.
Thanks for all replies, interesting mix.

Ours is paying a contribution which amounts to about 50% of the cost. We had bedsheets for it ourselves but some help with costs does relieve of pressure.

We were told we had to pay but our 12 weeks landed just after xmas and at the same time as my MAT pay dropping to stat.
They paid because it was cheaper for them to pay than keep doing visits to us as we were over an hour away.

"Do they still have a 'finders fee' ie our LA gets a payment from DD's LA?"

Yes. It's usually £27,000.

we paid it.....4 bloody times !!!!!

Hi we've been told by our LA we have to pay the court fees ourselves about 250 per child. We have two

I paid and submitted the application but I was immediately reimbursed by the LA

Both times we paid, LA then reimbursed.

It's currently £170 according to this, page 16

formfinder.hmctsformfinder.justice.gov.uk/ex50-eng.pdf

The LA DS came via paid. Same county as the court so I was given a letter to include with the application that said which internal cost centre the courts should charge.

Our local authority paid but I think that was because they totally messed up and delayed our adoption assessment through incompetence.

Our L.A. reimbursed us
.....only because we asked as heard other adopters had it paid x

IRO is keen for the agencies to agree on which of them will be paying it, so we may get it back yet.