DMD Costs legal costs tools

Works out the main civil court fees in England and Wales, with fee numbers: the issue fee for money, non-money (such as repairs), possession, goods, costs-only (CPR 46.14) and Solicitors Act claims; hearing fees by track; applications; appeals; detailed assessment by the size of the bill; default costs certificates; and enforcement. Help with fees is not taken into account.

Works out the fixed costs a professional or public authority deputy may take from P's estate under Court of Protection Practice Direction 19B (the 2024 version, and the December 2017 version for periods ending before 1 April 2024), fee by fee: the deputy application, the annual management fees for property and affairs (the net-assets percentage below £20,300) and health and welfare, reports to the OPG, tax returns, trustee and PD 9D applications, property management, conveyancing and travel, with part years and VAT. Where the deputy takes detailed assessment instead, it gives the SCCO fee, the 75% cap on payments on account and the time limit, never an estimate of what an assessment would allow. Every figure is a maximum. DMD Costs does not act in Court of Protection matters.

Works out a deadline under the Civil Procedure Rules in England and Wales from a date: clear days (CPR 2.8(2) and (3)), the 5-day rule (CPR 2.8(4)), calendar months (CPR 2.10), court office closures (CPR 2.8(5) and PD 2A) and the latest days to email or post a document for deemed service (CPR 6.26). Name a common time limit as a preset (for example the defence, the acknowledgment of service, the appellant's notice or Points of Dispute), or give your own period, plus the date it runs from.

Works out when a claim form and particulars of claim are deemed served in England and Wales, and every date that follows: acknowledgment of service, the defence, agreed extensions and the earliest default judgment, with bank holidays and court closures. Also covers the Damages Claims Portal (PD 51ZB). Give the issue date, how and when the claim form was served, and how the particulars were served.

Works out the CPR Part 47 detailed assessment timetable in England and Wales from the dates you have: the last day to serve the notice of commencement (N252), Points of Dispute, the first day for a default costs certificate (N254), Replies, the request for an assessment hearing (N258), provisional assessment steps and payment. Allows for deemed service, weekends, bank holidays and court office closures. Give at least the right to costs (its kind and date).

Works out employment tribunal costs figures in England, Wales and Scotland under the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024: preparation time at the rule 77 hourly rate for the year the time was spent (£44 from 6 April 2024, up £1 each 6 April), final hearing time left out; a costs order with the £20,000 limit on a specified sum (rule 76), lay representatives' rates, witness expenses and deposits; the choice between a costs order and preparation time (rule 73(3)); wasted costs against a representative (rules 78 to 80); the 28-day deadline to apply (rules 75 and 5); and litigant in person costs in the Employment Appeal Tribunal (rule 34D, with the two-thirds cap). It applies the rates and caps to your figures and never estimates what a tribunal would allow. DMD Costs does not act in employment tribunals.

Works out the fixed costs CPR 45 Section II allows a legal representative in England and Wales, line by line with the PD 45 table for each sum: fixed commencement costs on a money or goods claim (Table 2), judgment in default, on admission, summary judgment and Consumer Credit Act goods judgments (Table 3), possession and demotion claims (Tables 4 and 5), accelerated possession, extra service (Table 6) and enforcement (Table 7: charging orders, third party debt orders, writs, warrants, questioning, attachment of earnings). Online civil money claims follow PD 51R. No VAT and no London weighting; court fees are on top; the court can order otherwise. It never works out fixed recoverable costs (Part 45 Sections IV to X).

Works out simple interest at 8% a year on an order for costs in England and Wales: from the date of the order (or acceptance of a Part 36 offer, or the date the court set) to the date you choose, allowing for payments on account, the County Court £5,000 rule and its exceptions, and leap years. It does not decide rates where the court has a discretion.

Works out interest on damages before judgment in England and Wales (Senior Courts Act 1981 s.35A; County Courts Act 1984 s.69), head by head: general damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity at 2% a year from service of the claim form; past losses running to the end date at half the Court Funds Office special account rate from when they began; a loss on one date (a large expense, a bereavement award, funeral costs) at the full rate; a loss that stopped before the end date by one of three methods; and a debt at 8%, another rate or Bank Rate plus a margin, with wording for the particulars of claim (CPR 16.4(2)). Uses every special account rate since 1 February 1993, credits interest on interim payments against the past losses, and gives the daily rate. No interest on future losses.

Works out simple interest at 8% a year on a judgment debt in England and Wales, from the date of judgment (or a date the court ordered, or in the County Court a date for payment in the judgment) to the date you choose. High Court: any judgment (Judgments Act 1838 s.17); no rule fixes how part payments are applied, so the default is interest first, a rule of thumb the Court of Appeal accepted as fair, with the debt-first total alongside. County Court: only judgments of £5,000 or more or for a Late Payment Act qualifying debt, with the exceptions in the County Courts (Interest on Judgment Debts) Order 1991: consumer credit and suspended possession orders carry none, payments go to the debt first, County Court enforcement that produced a payment stops it, and an attachment of earnings or administration order suspends it while in force. Flags interest more than six years old (Limitation Act 1980 s.24(2)). Leap years per Lomas v Burlington. Not for interest on costs (use calculate_interest_on_costs) or interest before judgment.

Works out the last day to bring a civil claim in England and Wales under the Limitation Act 1980, strictly: personal injury, clinical negligence and industrial disease (s.11, with children and capacity under s.28, death under s.11(5) and s.12, child sexual abuse under s.11ZA, armed forces), housing disrepair (a continuing breach: the 6-year look-back from the issue date), contract, tort and latent damage with the 15-year longstop, deeds, the Defective Premises Act, contribution, defamation, defective products and judgments. It never infers a date of knowledge: give it. Where the law is unsettled it gives the earlier (safe) date first, never moves a last day off a weekend or bank holiday, and treats s.33 as a discretion, never a date.

Works out the costs a self-represented party can claim in the civil courts of England and Wales under CPR 46.5: £24 an hour for time spent on or after 1 October 2025 and £19 an hour before (PD 46 para 3.4), or proven financial loss; payments for legal services and expert help with the costs claim; disbursements; the two-thirds cap on everything except disbursements, checked only against your own figure for what a lawyer would have been allowed; the small claims track limits (CPR 27.14(2)); fixed recoverable costs (CPR 45.4); and who counts as a litigant in person. It never estimates what a lawyer would have been allowed, and the court decides the time reasonably spent.

Works out a Part 36 offer in England and Wales: when it was made (deemed service, CPR 6.26 and 36.7) and when its relevant period ends; whether an acceptance was in time (CPR 36.13); whether the judgment, or the detailed assessment, beat the offer (CPR 36.17(1)); and the consequences in money: the additional amount, enhanced interest of up to 10% above base rate, indemnity costs and interest on them, the 35% uplift in fixed costs claims (CPR 36.24), or the defendant's costs. Uses the Bank of England's base rate history. Give at least who made the offer, the amount and the date it was sent; add the outcome to see the consequences.

Works out the dates the main pre-action protocols in England and Wales set after a letter of claim, counted the way each protocol words them, with the paragraph for each: housing conditions (20 working days from receipt, deemed 2 days after the letter's date; inspection; expert's report), clinical disputes (14 days from receipt; Letter of Response 4 months from the letter of claim, and from receipt), personal injury (21 calendar days from posting; 3 months from the acknowledgment), disease and illness including hearing loss (21 days from posting; 90 days from the acknowledgment), professional negligence, construction and engineering, debt claims, and the Practice Direction where no protocol applies. Flags dates that fall on a weekend or bank holiday (protocol periods do not roll forward).

Checks a social landlord's Awaab's Law timescales in England (section 10A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and the Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) Regulations 2025, S.I. 2025/1042, in force from 27 October 2025 for damp and mould and for emergency hazards): the investigation, the written summary, the safety work, alternative accommodation and supplementary preventative work, each with its deadline and whether it was met, counting working days or 24-hour periods. It does not decide whether a hazard is significant or an emergency: that is a question of fact. Give the hazard, the timescale (track) and the date the landlord became aware; add later dates to check each step.

Checks which conditions for security for costs in the civil courts of England and Wales (CPR Part 25 Section VI, as rewritten from 6 April 2025) appear to be met on your answers, with the rule's words: a claimant resident out of the jurisdiction (with the enforcement position by country, including the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention), a company with reason to believe it will be unable to pay (and after-the-event insurance), a change of address to evade, no or an incorrect address, a nominal claimant, steps taken with assets, funders and assignors (r.25.28), appeals (r.25.29), counterclaims, Solicitors Act and detailed assessments, arbitration challenges (s.70(6)) and foreign judgment registrations (CPR 74.5); then the discretion factors and the procedure. It never decides the application and never suggests an amount of security: that is for the court.

Checks whether a claim in England and Wales normally goes to the small claims track (CPR 26.9 to 26.12: £10,000; personal injury limits for pain, suffering and loss of amenity; housing disrepair with an order for repairs; never harassment or unlawful eviction) and adds up what CPR 27.14(2) allows on your figures: the Table 2 fixed issue costs, court fees paid, reasonable travel, lost earnings up to £95 a day for each person, experts up to £750 each, up to £260 for advice on an injunction or specific performance claim, and an appeal transcript. Allocation is the court's decision, and further costs for unreasonable behaviour are for the court: never estimated.

Explains what a costs order in England and Wales means, from the words of the order or the wording picked from a list: costs in any event, costs in the case or in the application, costs reserved, claimant's or defendant's costs in the case, costs thrown away, of and caused by, here and below, no order as to costs, summary and detailed assessment, payment on account, indemnity or standard basis, an order silent on costs, deemed orders (Part 36 acceptance, discontinuance, strike-out for an unpaid fee), wasted costs and non-party costs. Says who recovers the costs under each way the case can end, whether anything is payable now and how the amount is decided, with the rule, and how family proceedings and employment tribunals differ. It explains: it never puts a figure on costs.

Says which court office deals with a detailed assessment in England and Wales, from the court named on the case: the local County Court hearing centre or district registry, or the Senior Courts Costs Office (SCCO). Handles the London rule in PD 47 para 4.2, where the request for an assessment hearing (N258) goes to the SCCO on CE-File but the default costs certificate (N254) stays at the local hearing centre.

Finds the code for a piece of work in an electronic bill of costs (Precedent S, PD 47 Schedule 2) by code or by the work done: phases P1 to P15, tasks T1 to T41, activities A1 to A10, expenses X1 to X15 and the matching J-codes, with each task's Precedent H budget phase.

Answers costs questions from solicitors in England and Wales, on either side of a claim: budgets, Part 36, settlement, detailed assessment, interest and getting paid. Searches about 30 short answers, each citing its CPR rule, practice direction or statute, a glossary of legal costs terms, and a guide to the court forms and costs precedents (N252, N254, N258, N260, Precedents A to U), with the official version of each form and the free tool that fills it in. Use it for 'what is', 'when must', 'who pays', 'how do we' and 'which form' questions about civil costs in England and Wales.