Recently I won a family court case in NZ. How do I apply for the cost claims? I have spoken to my lawyer, but

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I am a New Zealand lawyer based in Wellington and will help you with your question today. Please give me a minute to read the question

Did you have a lawyer? What sort of case was this? In some cases you can get costs, so more details would help

What was the result of the court case?

Did the Family Court say you could seek costs of your case? Usually when you win a case you can claim costs on the District Court scale

How long ago was the order returning the children?

And apart from the mother refusing to sign, has anything else happened on the case?

The general principle is that if you win a case you can claim costs. Under New Zealand law however it would be difficult to sue the mother and her husband for damages. There has to be what is called a cause of action, which means there must have been an event under which you can claim damages under New Zealand law. Contesting a custody case which was not strong would normally be met by a claim for costs by the successful party, but you cannot claim damages. The other issues however in relation to the forgery of documents should be a matter for the police rather than a civil action. It certainly sounds as if they behaved badly, and that would normally go to an award of costs. You could probably still make a claim for costs

You can make a claim without a lawyer although you can also claim the lawyer's costs in preparing an application for costs. You would apply to the family court where you had the hearing, which I assume was New Plymouth

The first step would be to approach the lawyer for the other party and tell them you want to claim costs. I would assume they will respond by refusing to acknowledge the application or just ignoring you. I think you would be better instructing a lawyer to make the claim for costs however because it is a fairly technical area of law and need someone familiar with the rules about costs

There would be advantages in using your former lawyer because that lawyer will have the best knowledge of the case and make the best case for costs. But you could get a new lawyer if you no longer want to use the former lawyer

You should contact the New Plymouth court and ask for the passport. If the case is over and there is no appeal pending, there is no reason for the court to hold the passport. Your remedy against the children's mother is to claim costs. A possible cause of action against Internal Affairs might be to claim breach of statutory duty. Any issues about forgery should be matters for the police

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Your only real remedy would be to complain to the independent police conduct authority that the issues have not been properly investigated. Sometimes these investigations to take time however

Your lawyer should provide all of the documents on your file on request. There will be some documents on the court file which are not available for the parties, such as child psychologist reports. But you should get everything you need from your lawyer, who was obliged to provide a copy of the file on request

You can brief a lawyer from anywhere to sue the Department, but I would suggest you need an experienced senior lawyer for that