Legal Cost Specialists

Further issues with provisional assessment

More problems with the provisional assessment process…

Problems:

The, very limited, provisional assessment pilot was based on claims for costs with a value of up to £25,000. When provisional assessment was rolled out the figure was moved up to £75,000. This was an interesting experiment. It failed.

The provisional assessment rules do not require the receiving party to lodge the bulk of their papers with the Court in advance of the assessment. The Senior Courts Costs Office believes it is not possible to properly assess a Bill without the proper supporting documents and requires the solicitor’s full file to be lodged. If the Rules Committee and other courts believe they know better than experienced costs judges and costs officers as to what is required to undertake a fair assessment, they are wrong.

Solutions:

Reduce maximum figure for provisional assessment to £25,000.

Require full supporting papers to be lodged.

2 thoughts on “Further issues with provisional assessment”

  1. The previous limit excluded additional liabilities so for the majority of cases the total limit was well over £25k. I agree though, PA is not working well. It’s preventing settlements with fixed costs making it less risky to proceed to PA.

  2. Simon, glad to see you reading my comments from your 1st blog post, and adopting it as your solution! I wonder if this will be published…..

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