Award-winning Court of Protection Costs Specialists
Hello, and welcome to the latest in a series of articles and updates that we here at A & M Bacon are issuing to you as professional deputies and those assisting professional deputies to provide you with anything that we feel is interesting, but more importantly, useful, in relation to all things surrounding costs and Court of Protection matters.
We are conscious of the sheer volume of information and advice that is out there, and this release seeks to condense concise and useful content that you can utilise in the management of your Protected Party’s affairs.
We remain aware of the important work you undertake as a deputy and we seek to fully support and assist you to ensure that you are paid reasonably for the work you do, whilst balancing that with the needs of your client and their best interests.
This month’s edition will be in relation to a recent hearing that was brought before Costs Judge Whalan and the associated outcomes.
I do hope you will find this, and future editions, to be most interesting and useful.
The decision was made on a case concerning TG, whereby Kingsley Napley were acting as deputy, to detail 3 key areas where they felt that reductions were commonly made which were felt to be unfair and/or unreasonable. The areas were as follows:
The background of the matter was that TG had an estate of over £2.7 million at the time of assessment as well as a substantial income. The deputy was managing four separate bank accounts.
On the first issue of payments, there had been significant time claimed within the bill due to the level of activity, that included payments for a wide range of areas as necessary in facilitating the effective management of P’s financial affairs.
The original outcome was that these claims would be disallowed in their entirety.
The argument was made that it was the deputy’s personal responsibility to authorise these payments and costs judge Whalan conceded that there was no specific rule that would prevent the recovery of these items, however, it may be the case that not every payment requires this Grade A input and steps should be taken to mitigate the authorisation frequency.
The advice we have been giving to our clients in this regard is to claim and record this time specifying the payment that is being authorised along with any potential further justification to maximise the chance of successful recovery. It may be that we learn on a case-by-case basis going forward whether this time is to be recovered or not.
On the second issue of financial reviews, there had been time claimed on a monthly basis for reviewing the deputyship accounts, whilst quoting the relevant SRA Account Rules 2019.
Again, these were once more to be disallowed in their entirety with the costs officer quoting “Supervision/overhead”.
It was argued that this work could not be avoided by the deputy, and more so, was required under the SRA Account rules and the OPG Deputyship Standards. It was averred that this work represented a specifically required task under the expectations that were in place in conducting a fastidious deputyship.
For this aspect of the hearing, Judge Whalan conceded that this task was paramount to the close and careful consideration of P’s finances and would therefore be allowed. It was caveated that whilst this time was recoverable, if it were to exceed 2 units then this would require further specific consideration on a case-by-case basis.
We have been advising our clients that this time is to be claimed in our bills going forward, making reference to the relevant SRA Account Rules. If the time of 2 units has been exceeded, we have been encouraging our clients to provide specific justification as to why this has been the case.
The final area in the hearing, also referred to time taken in managing P’s bank accounts, but instead focused on the preparation of reconciliation statements, whilst assessing the income and expenditure through the analysis of the accounts in question.
The original outcome of the assessment in this regard was that there was to be substantial reductions to this time.
Whilst not originally mentioned in the entries themselves, in this element of the appeal the SRA Account Rules and OPG Deputyship Standards were once more referred to, specifically the requirements of the deputy to carry out work of this nature.
Upon review Judge Whalan conceded that the time that had been claimed had been done reasonably and was not unnecessarily high. Comments were made by Judge Whalan reminding deputies that there is an integral need to guard against excessive charges being claimed.
We have relayed to our clients that work of this nature will be claimed within the bills we draft but have once more implored them to provide any further justification as to any additional complexities that have arisen, so further explanation can be provided to the court.
Judge Whalan would not make a written judgement on this case, however, he confirmed that the outcome of the hearing would be communicated to the costs officers. The way in which each specific costs officer interprets the above is yet to be determined but as always our approach will be to conduct these issues cautiously and with extensive justification. We will also be keeping a close eye on new assessments coming in and advising our clients as to whether an informal appeal might be appropriate where reductions of this nature continue to be made.
I do hope you have found this month’s article to be of interest. I will be happy to hear from anyone who might want some further training in relation to issues similar to this. If this is something that might be of interest, please do not hesitate to contact us. Our details are provided below.
31.07.2024
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