Civil Procedure Rules - April's amendments
Amendments to the Civil Procedure Rules coming in this April include, among others, changes to the costs management process and centralising applications for charging orders, coupled with making them an “on paper” process.
Costs management
The costs management rules are amended to provide that only the first page of Precedent H is to be exchanged and filed in cases where the value of the claims is under £50,000 or the costs are less than £25,000.
Amendments are also made to the point at which a costs budget must be filed. For lower value claims the budget must be filed with the Directions Questionnaire, for other claims it must be filed 21 days before the case management conference. A new budget discussion report must be agreed and filed seven days before the first hearing. Amendments are also made to provide that costs claimed in each phase of the proceedings, are made available to the court when assessing costs at the end of a case.
Charging Orders
Applications will be processed centrally at the County Court Money Claims Centre. A court officer at CCMCC may make the interim order providing certain conditions are met. Parties may apply for a review of an interim charging order made by a court officer. Applications where the court officer may not make an interim order will be referred to a judge for a decision on the making of an interim order and/or transfer of the matter to a local hearing centre.
Once an interim order is made and served the parties will have 28 days to object to the making of the final charging order. If an objection is received the matter will be sent to the local County Court hearing centre.
Posted on 03/28/2016 by Ortolan
