Civil news: change to standard cost limits in family law cases
Substantive certificates for family work issued after 1 May 2016 will have a £5,000 cost limitation as standard.
Standard cost limitations in family law cases are changing and this will affect substantive certificates sent out after 1 May 2016.
The new cost limitation after 1 May will be £5,000. There will be no changes to ‘emergency delegated functions’ certificates where the standard £1,350 will apply.
All applications with limitations currently set at more than £5,000 will remain at their higher cost limitation. For example, Special Children Act proceedings.
What does this mean for CCMS applications?
This change will not affect the way providers make their applications. After providers make an online submission for family law work LAA staff will alter the cost limitation to the new amount within the Client and Cost Management System (CCMS).
Why are we doing this now?
This change has been introduced to help reduce the number of amendment requests which need to be submitted to the Legal Aid Agency (LAA). The benefit to yourselves includes:
- cases can be worked on for longer before an increase is needed
- less involvement from the LAA during the lifetime of the case