This month has seen the government bring in legislation to increase some court fees by over 600%.
The House of Lords approved the motion to implement the Civil Proceedings and Family Proceedings Fees (Amendment) Order 2015, meaning that 9 March 2015 saw dramatic fee increases, much earlier than had been anticipated.The Order means that for claims worth £10,000.00 or more, the new fee will be 5% of the value of the claim, capped at a maximum fee of £10,000.00.
The increase in fees is illustrated below:
| Value of claim (£) | Old fee (£ paper) | New fee (£) |
Increase
|
| 20,000 | 610 | 1,000 | 64% |
| 40,000 | 610 | 2,000 | 228% |
| 90,000 | 910 | 4,500 | 395% |
| 150,000 | 1,315 | 7,500 | 470% |
| 190,000 | 1,315 | 9,500 | 622% |
| 200,000 | 1,515 | 10,000 | 576% |
| 250,000 | 1,720 | 10,000 | 481% |
The Law Society has issued a pre-action protocol letter for judicial review to challenge the government’s decision.
It is thought that the hike in court fees are most likely to impact upon small businesses, as well as personal injury and clinical negligence claims. The Law Society has highlighted some of their major concerns as:
- Those with genuine claims may be put off going to court;
- Large companies will be provided with an incentive to deny liability, knowing that the injured party would not be in a position to fund expensive court fees;
- Small businesses may be forced down insolvency routes.
The full impact of the increase in court fees is currently unknown. However, these changes undoubtedly mean that alternative dispute resolution is now more important than ever. Alternative mediums such as mediation, arbitration and adjudication often save time, the stresses and formalities of court proceedings, and significantly may result in considerable costs savings.
Our featured partner is the ADR Group who are a leading authority in mediation and other dispute resolution techniques and who provide cost-effective, professional dispute resolution for businesses, the workplace or the family. www.adrgroup.co.uk
Rahim Shamji, Barrister and Mediator, ADRg.
“ADRg is the oldest dispute resolution service provider in the UK. Over the last 26 years, ADRg has developed three core business areas, ‘teach, talk, resolve’. We are the leading training organisation for civil/commercial, family and workplace mediation services. We have a membership of over 200 mediators across all three disciplines and we undertake all forms of dispute resolution.
One of those trained mediators is Shainul Kassam. Shainul qualified as a commercial mediator in 2011 and Fortune Law have continued to support ADRg and the use of mediation as a client empowering dispute resolution opportunity.
Since the Jackson reforms and now the increase in court costs, various ADR methods are set to increase and become the norm. 2015 sees the new Consumer Disputes Act come into force requiring businesses to offer ADR to consumer disputes. ADRg is set to deal with this new development by also launching ADRg Express, our online mediation service targeted at small claims and consumer disputes.
For more information on any of our services please visit www.adrgroup.co.uk or call 0203 600 5050.”
