Guidance issued by CCMCC Salford about use of Form H
Following concerns raised by practitioners about the County Court Money Claims Centre (Salford Business Centre) regarding the incorrect issuing of the new Form H, the following guidance was recently given by the Centre Manager:
“Further to your e-mail and discussion at the stakeholders meeting on Monday I am able to confirm that a cost budget by way of the precedent H form is not required for cases issued pre 1st April 2013. The guidance issued to courts incorrectly told staff to use the new Directions Questionnaire form from 1 April irrespective of whether the claim had been issued before 1 April.
Therefore in the event that solicitors receive a notice asking them to file precedent H for a claim issued before 1st April, they can ignore this unless otherwise told to file one by the Judge. We will be publishing an e-News article to this effect for court staff and judiciary”
However, if you are ever in doubt as to whether or not to file and serve a costs budget our advice would be to do so as the consequences of not filing one are severe and could result in the disallowance of all the offending party’s costs (save for any Court fees that have been paid).
If you have any worries or questions regarding your costs budgets we can help you get it right, just give us a call.
