Effects of Jackson Reforms on the Provisional Detailed Assessment of Costs

It has been stated in the draft amendments to the CPR implementing Jackson that in all detailed assessment of costs proceedings in the country court the provisional assessment will apply if it has claimed an amount of £75, 000 or less.

Grays, United Kingdom (prHWY.com) February 27, 2013 - It has been stated in the draft amendments to the CPR implementing Jackson that in all detailed assessment of costs proceedings which are commenced in the High court or even in the county court, the provisional assessment will apply if it has claimed an amount of £75, 000 or less and this will be effective on or after the 1st of April this year.

With that kind of size of billings, the hearing will just last for a day or more. Given the considerations for the costs of the provisional assessment, the court will not award more than £1, 500 to any party. It is better to give your best offer on the outset because there will be no room for any negotiations.

Will this also mean that for a claimed amount up to £75, 000, there will also be new court fees to be implemented? Since, the current payable fee is £980, when you request for a detailed assessment of costs with claimed amount between £50, 000 to £100,000.

Even if the provisional assessments only cover assessment of papers with limited documentations before the court, although this is during the pilot of provisional assessment, undertaking a provisional assessment will still be required a judicial time equivalent of that for a full detailed assessment of costs. Then we can assume that the court fees will have an appropriate level which could be set modestly.

If this will not happen, then we can worry more things relating to provisional assessment. Such as this excerpt from the draft of the CPR amendments mentioned earlier which states that, "the court will not award more than £1, 500 to any party giving considerations to the costs of the provisional assessment." The "costs" mentioned from that excerpt from the draft of the CPR amendments may include both the court fee and VAT. It does not clearly say whether the court fee is payable in addition nor we can refer to "recoverable fees".

Will this be amended in the published rules which will be amended this coming week (second week of February)? Because if it will not be reduced before the 1st of April this year, then it will really be hard for us to make it up since with that kind of costs wherein VAT is included, it will only leave us a small profit for dealing a detailed assessment of costs with a bill of costs up to £75, 000.

For now, all we can do is to wait onto what's going to happen on this matter on the provisional assessment. Let's just hope that the provisional assessment will have a different level of court fees with that of a detailed assessment of costs.

Original Source: http://robinscostsconsultants.co.uk/latest-update-on-the-provisional-detailed-assessment-of-costs/

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