Award-winning Court of Protection Costs Specialists
In this month’s edition we intend to provide advice regarding the approach when seeking to recover costs of tax return work undertaken by the deputy on behalf of the Paying Party (P).
This article will be of particular interest to professional deputies, and those assisting professional deputies during your day-to-day work.
The situation arose following A&M Bacon receiving instructions from a client to draft a bill of costs, solely for tax return work undertaken by the deputy. This was requested in a separate bill to the general management costs, as the work was completed outside of the general management billing period, due to amending a tax return for the previous filing year.
Fixed costs
In accordance with Practice Direction 19B, when a solicitor is appointed to act as deputy the following fixed costs can be sought for preparation of the tax return:
Where solicitors are opting to seek recovery of fixed costs in preparation for the annual tax return, this should not be included within the general management bill of costs.
Costs to be assessed
In cases where fixed costs are not appropriate, the deputy may, if preferred, apply to the Senior Courts Costs Office (SCCO) for a detailed assessment of the costs of preparing the tax return.
Within the instructions received, the client confirmed that costs incurred were not within the fixed costs limits and therefore assessment was required.
Request for assessment
Following submission of the bill of costs for solely the tax return work, the SCCO queried why the costs had been separately filed from the general management bill.
A response was prepared advising that the bill had been created separately from the general management work as the tax return work was incurred outside of the billing period.
The SCCO confirmed that they would be willing to exceptionally accept the bill but although tax work is set out in Practice Direction 19B, it is considered to be general management along with producing the deputyship report. The SCCO have clarified that they would expect this to fall within the general management bill going forward, if fixed costs were not being taken.
It is important to note that the costs of the deputy undertaking tax return work do not need to be set out in a separate bill to that of the general management costs. Ensuring this is claimed correctly within the general management bill should avoid any potential filing rejections leading to delays in assessment.
In practice, A&M Bacon would recommend that any tax return work undertaken by the deputy is included in a separate part in the general management bill of costs, to allow the costs officer to easily identify the same if required. We would also recommend that the description is expanded (e.g stating the year of the tax return amended) to allow the costs officer to clearly identify the same if necessary.
We do hope that you have found this month’s article to be of interest. We would be happy to hear from anyone who may require further assistance in relation to the above. If this is something of interest, please do not hesitate to contact us, our details are provided below.
Emma Robinett, Costs Lawyer
11.09.2024
As a further supplement to this month’s main article, I thought I would provide a further update following additional issues arising, during the past week or two. Think of it as a kind of heads up.
As ever, this short article will be of particular interest to professional deputies, and those assisting professional deputies during your day-to-day work.
What’s the issue?
So, the issue arises when a new deputy is appointed (the new deputy) to take over from a previous deputy (the previous deputy). Questions have been raised by the Senior Courts Costs Office (SCCO) in relation to when the work of the previous deputy should cease and when the work of the new deputy should commence.
Only this week, we have had an assessment back, which assesses the costs up to two days after the new deputyship order was entered. The costs officer has provided the following note:-
“Following the [new] order there is only authority for reasonable expenses to be paid to the lay deputies going forward and for outstanding general management costs, i.e. costs up to 11 April 2022 where the professional deputy’s authority ceased. There are ongoing discussions at a judicial level around costs that are outside of the dates of authority, we hope to receive further guidance shortly”.
It has been suggested that the aforementioned guidance will be sent out sometime after the end of September 2024 (the discussions said to be taking place at this time). We will, of course, be keeping our eyes peeled and will update subscribers further in due course.
What can we do?
Evidently, we will need to await further guidance from the court. However, it would appear to be sensible to have this in mind when you are providing information to the new deputy and ongoing assistance, in P’s best interests, for example if making ongoing payments. It might well be the case that costs incurred after the order is entered (plus two days for service) will be disallowed. I would suggest encouraging the new deputy, be they a fellow professional or a lay deputy, to serve you with a copy of the new order as soon as it is received, to ensure that there is no duplication of costs between deputies and/or so you can handover all P’s affairs as swiftly as possible.
We will provide further updates and information as to these issues, as and when received.
We do hope that you have found this month’s articles to be of interest. We would be happy to hear from anyone who may require further assistance in relation to the above. If this is something of interest, please do not hesitate to contact us, our details are provided below.
Paul Cruickshanks, Head of Court of Protection
11.09.2024
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