Summary fixed fees

Previously, it was necessary to complete the account synopsis before you could commence drafting your claim.

This meant that when changing between an 'INTERIM/FINAL' claim draft work items had to be removed.

This is now no longer the case, significant improvements have now been made meaning the synopsis only needs to be completed at the point that you are submitting your claim.

To facilitate the improvements when first accessing the on-line account you will require to confirm if the case proceeded to trial beyond 30 minutes or not.

This question is asked as it will determine the correct fee schedule and fees available for sheriff court cases and the fees that are available for JP Court cases.

• in the Sheriff and JP court when you first enter the LARN the display is as follows:

 

 

• it is easier to draft your account as you no longer need to complete the synopsis until you are ready to submit your claim
• you can make a selection based upon your expectations for the case
• as the fee schedules share the same fees, such as the core fixed payment and bail appeal, it is possible to draft your claim without necessarily knowing if the case will proceed to trial beyond the first 30 minutes
• this means you can change the fee schedule that applies knowing that work items consistent across schedules will remain and will not require to be removed
• only valid work items will be available depending on the selection you have made
• the core fee/case disposal fee continues to be automatically generated
• if you change your selection, having previously added work items and some of these become invalid, you will be advised of this within the work breakdown tab either when attempting to submit the claim, or on exiting the claim and then re-accessing it
• for example: if the initial selection was the case did proceed to trial beyond 30 minutes when ultimately it did not, and the first day of trial was previously claimed, on changing the selection to 'Case did not proceed to trial, or trial was less than 30 minutes', the list of work items available will no longer include trial days. Therefore, if you attempt to submit the claim with the first day at court work item, the following will be displayed:

 

• to reduce the risk of accidently removing valid work items you can now only remove invalid work items from within the work breakdown tab, either individually or by clicking the down arrow then selecting Only invalid work items and clicking the bin icon, as shown below:

• to further streamline the process we have removed work items for the first / second diet of deferred sentence and instead ask that where there is a third diet of deferred sentence, you enter the dates of the first two in the details box as shown below:

Transfers

• where the case is transferred away from you you will not be able to submit your final claim
• in these circumstances you should submit the appropriate interim claim for the work you have undertaken
• upon the case concluding, and we receive the final agents account, you will receive a notification advising that you can now submit your final claim
• when making this claim you should select 'Other' from within the synopsis drop down for case disposal and enter 'Transferred'.