Award-winning Court of Protection Costs Specialists
In a recent detailed assessment at the Senior Court Costs Office (SCCO) the Costs Officer allowed a 100% of the costs presented in an application to be appointed as a deputy.
Jenny Walmsley, Costs Lawyer And Court Of Protection Specialist takes a look at the case where working in partnership with the deputy achieved a full recovery of the costs as presented.
No reports Jenny. This application was for a protected party with assets of around £200,000 which included a property and savings / investments.
Yes. This was not a straight forward application. It was made complicated by a distant family member seeking to be joined as a party to the application and a welfare application by solicitors representing the interests of another party to the application.
In this matter the deputy had taken on board the full guidance from the OPG/SCCO with professional deputy costs. The deputy had limited the approach to the numerous issues in the case and appropriately delegated some of the family history and relationship research. The file notes were concise and populated with facts that were transferrable to the narrative. I think by presenting a narrative covering the background and explaining the approach made by the deputy to save costs expenditure, by taking the most appropriate action in response to the actions from the opponents, this ultimately led to the costs officer to tick every entry as reasonable.
Well, here at A&M we like to work in partnership with deputies to recover their expenditure on deputyship cases. We offer in house training from our court of protection costing team including our brand ambassador a former Master of the SCCO. We provide advice with our bills of costs and review assessments to look at ways to working in partnership to maximise recoveries in line with the OPG/SCCO deputy guidance.
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