Summary of 83rd amendment to CPR
With effect from 6 April 2016 the 83rd amendments to the CPR comes into force. There are some minor but important changes in relation to Costs Management (PD3E):
• 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
• Exclusions – Claims made on behalf of a child are excluded from the regime, and where the Claimant has a limited or severely impaired life expectation the court will ordinarily disapply cost management.
• Timing – 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.
• Documentation – Agreed budget discussion reports must be filed seven days before the first hearing (this is a new provision which has been adopted previously on a voluntary basis)
• Costs claimed in each phase of the proceedings, must be made available to the court when assessing costs at the end of a case.
Further amendments to the Rules insofar as they relate to costs matters are as follows:
Part 47 and Practice Direction 47 – The rules are amended to provide that details of costs budgets are provided when detailed assessment of costs is required (Model Precedent Q).
PD51L – New Bill of Costs
The pilot scheme for a new bill of costs is extended whilst the impact of its mandatory introduction is assessed.
