I was just asked briefly for some input on something that I haven't seen in years – a request for warrant of execution addressed to bailiffs in the county court.
There
was some question about the recoverable costs, for reasons which will quickly
become apparent to anybody who does not already twig it. They are to be found in Table 5 at Paragraph
45.6 of the Civil Procedure Rules:-
“Where a request is filed for the issue of a warrant of execution under CCR Order 26, Rule 1, for a sum exceeding £25 ............................ £2.25."
As
my dear old grandmother would have said, £2.25 in this context is neither use
nor ornament.
What
fraction of the cost of even a relatively junior unqualified member of staff,
their heating, lighting, paper, postage etc etc is that intended to cover? What is the point?
There
are some other gems in this section of the rule that deals with fixed costs. If you make an application for an attachment
of earnings order, for example, then “for each attendance on the hearing of the
application” fixed costs of – wait for it - £8.50
are allowed.
I
suppose it might cover your car park charges whilst you sit around at court waiting
for something to happen.
These
provisions are hopelessly out of date. It’s little surprise that most of these prescribed
allowances refer to orders within the County
Court Rules (1981) which were supposed to be replaced by the Civil Procedure Rules 1998.
It’s
another testimonial to the incompetence of our administration that after
fifteen years and four times as many “updates” we still have stuff like
this within our civil justice code - and this in relation to procedures that
some deploy regularly and extensively.
Meanwhile
the Ministry of Injustice is rushing to implement another set of half-baked
rules that prescribe ridiculously low allowances for legal costs, which should
sit very comfortably amid some of this pointless old rubbish.
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