Costs

Costs in Family Court
The general principle for costs in the Family Courts is that each pays their own. However if your litigation behaviour is deemed to be unreasonable or "vexations" you may end up having costs awarded against you.

Costs of Psychological Assessments
By default each party will pay half of the assessment (Family Procedure Rules 2010, section 25.8(6) and Civil Procedure Rules section 35.8(5)). The cost can be from £1,000 per person to many £1,000's if the instruction is not kept to a small number of issues.

The Legal Services Commission publishes the maximum rates they will pay for experts in courts. These are available in the document "Expert's payment rates" available at 2011-2012 reforms. The rates from 3rd October 2011 are £117/hour for an adult psychologist and £126/hour for a child psychologist.