Award-winning Court of Protection Costs Specialists
Whilst I appreciate the long month of January is almost at an end, I did want to wish all our readers a very Happy and Prosperous 2025.
Over the Christmas period, I was put in charge of preparing the traditional Christmas dinner. All the usual, Turkey, stuffing, roast potatoes, vegetables, along with all the usual accoutrements! In years gone by, I have been known to try such things as boiling the carrots in orange juice, roasting the potatoes in goose fat and cooking the turkey on it’s side to preserve moisture!
This year, I decided to strip it all back! To keep it simple, if you will. Just a splash of olive oil for the potatoes and roasted vegetables, turkey cooked in a bit of foil and well rested! It was, if I say so myself, a triumph, but it went down well.
So heading into 2025, my aim is to keep things simple! Our aim remains at A & M to keep the assessment process as simple as we can for you.
To that end, our Daniel Harvey has prepared a piece providing some top tips on how to present your electronic file to the court, in such a way that will keep the costs officer and court happy. The overall theme of the piece? To keep it simple! Enjoy!
Paul Cruickshanks (Head of Court of Protection)
Following the pandemic, there has been an marked increase in the number of clients who wish to make use of the Document Upload Centre (DUC) and upload an electronic version of their file, rather than providing paper files to the Senior Courts Costs Office (SCCO).
In this month’s article, we will be looking at some top tips on how to keep the court and costs officers happy when providing your files in this way. This will be of interest to professional deputies, and those assisting a professional deputy alike.
There have been a number of issues in relation to the DUC, whereby firms will provide their files as separate documents, hidden within folder after folder, inside sub-folders with sub-folders inside them! This can make it difficult for the costs officers to locate attendance note and/or documents, should they wish to inspect them during the assessment process.
All the SCCO requires is all correspondence and documents to be in chronological order, enabling the Costs Officer to easily identify any correspondence, attendance notes or other documents whilst undertaking the assessment. Providing the relevant attendance notes and correspondence is also a good way to ensure there is sufficient evidence of the work you have undertaken during the deputyship period, rather than the Costs Officer having to work based purely upon what the Bill of Costs states. This is required to be uploaded as a single PDF, or several depending upon how large the file is. Crucially, the file should be presented in chronological order, to assist the costs officer with locating any documents or notes.
Although it is unlikely the Costs Officer will have time to fully review every single item uploaded to the DUC, it is good practice to ensure that sufficient evidence of the work is there, if needed. If the Costs Officer is able to easily find a file note if they have any doubts with regard to the reasonableness of an item, there is a much better chance of recovering that item in full.
I have even recently had a comment on an assessed bill from a Costs Officer, who commented on the issues and time delays he had when assessing a bill with a poorly regimented file that was uploaded to the DUC. Do try to avoid arranging correspondence into parties within different folders and sub-folders, a combined PDF of all items in the file in chronological order does the trick.
Remember, keep it simple!
Daniel Harvey (Court of Protection Costs Specialist)
Need assistance? Let’s have a chat!