Fees for issuing a possession claim in the county court set to increase by £75

On Wednesday 22nd July 2015, the Ministry of Justice announced a new consultation on court fee increases.

Civil proceedings

March 2015 saw the introduction of a court fee of 5% of the value of the claim, up to a maximum cap of £10,000 for a claim of £200,000. The new consultation proposes raising this cap to at least £20,000. There are approximately 5,000 claims per annum over £200,000, out of a total 1.2 million claims.

They are also proposing a 10% increase to a wide range of fees for civil proceedings.

This will include a proposed 10% increase in the fee for a writ of control, writ of delivery and writ of possession from £60 to £66.

Having said that, the court fee for a writ has not changed since 2011, even though other court fees have risen twice in recent months, with the first increase in April 2014 and the second in March 2015.

Have your say

If you would like to participate in the consultation, you can do so here [https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/further-fees-proposal-consultation] . The closing date is 15th September 2015.

Increases confirmed following previous consultation

The MoJ also announced that it will be implementing increases proposed in a consultation in January this year.

The fees for issuing a possession claim in the county court will increases by £75, from £280 to £355. The fees for general applications in civil proceedings will increase by £50, from £50 to £100, for an application by consent and by £100, from £155 to £255, for a contested application

These are going ahead, despite the fact that the majority of respondents to the consultation disagreed with the proposed fee increases. It does beg the question of why the MoJ bothered to ask!