Civil Litigation - Precedent H: What on earth is it?!

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Precedent H is another technical term for what is a budget, or forecast, of the costs in a case. It is only used for multi-track cases. It becomes relevant once you receive directions questionnaires. In this case, it will be the multi-track directions questionnaire, N181 and you will see box H near the bottom. The CPR Rule that governs these budgets is CPR 3.13.

Now, in fact, litigants in person do not have to fill in these budgets, so why talk about them? Well, the reason is that you may be facing an opponent who is represented and at the Case and Costs Management Conference, that always follows a multi-track directions questionnaire, you will have the opportunity to challenge their budget, and argue that it is too high.

Also, and this happened in a case we are helping a litigant in person with, it sometimes happens that solicitors either forget to fill in these time-consuming and cumbersome documents, or do so late. The law is very draconian on failure to file and serve a Precedent H in time (unlike in the case of other breaches of court orders) and can even strike-out a person's entire legal costs if they file late!

A CCMC is a golden opportunity and so it is worth considering taking limited legal advice on this technical area.

Time Code
0:00 - Intro
4:30 - Challenge Legal Costs as being too high
10:30 - Strike Out Precedent H for late filing
15:30 - The Denton Test
24:00 - Putting Pressure on Your Opponent

LINKS:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov...

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/pro...

https://www.gov.uk/government/publica...

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/pro...

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/...