Written evidence submitted by DCB Legal Ltd (WCC0044)
The current working time frames, capacity, and resourcing issues of England & Wales County Courts are having a detrimental effect on the service we can deliver to our clients and in turn, are having a significant impact on the profitability of our firm. I have highlighted below some of our key concerns for your consideration. We appreciate you will have a number of submissions to get through, so we decided to keep this succinct.
Effect on Landlord and Tenant Matters:
- Often clients are told by County Courts that there are no bailiffs available to carry out evictions;
- Due to the wait times and lack of County Court Bailiffs, we made numerous applications in 2022 for possession orders to be transferred up to the High Court to enable landlords to arrange for evictions via High Court Bailiffs;
- A number of applications were rejected as Judges were keen to see attempts made in the County Court first despite there being no requirement to do so.
- Several applications were listed for hearings for the same reason, causing our clients to incur further fees and enter further debt in many cases.
- There is no consistency in the way applications of this type are being determined, making it difficult to advise clients on their prospects of success and diluting the trust between clients and our firm.
- We received expressions of dissatisfaction from a number of clients due to the length of time the process took, e.g. Court Ref K3PP3601;
- Many of our clients face health issues and on occasion risk of homelessness;
Effect on Debt Recovery Fast Track Matters:
- We issued various Fast Track claims in 2022;
- Several of which are yet to reach trial;
- Once claims are sent to the Court, they are taking in excess of 6 months to receive the Notice of Issue;
- Many of our clients do not have the funds to keep their businesses afloat whilst they wait for the Judgments to be registered.
Seeking Updates from the Courts
- On average, our staff members are spending over an hour on hold to the contact centre;
- They are then often told that they need to put their request into an email despite often calling to chase a response to emails.
- The contact centre are generic in the information they provide and advise Court users that they are unable to escalate urgent matters;
- Often we have been advised that correspondence has not been received by the Court despite receiving an auto response confirming receipt;
- In our experience if our requests are not understood, they are ignored;
- Referrals to Judges are taking a considerable period of time;
- Once directions questionnaires are filed by both parties, there are significant delays in the time taken for the Court to transfer the files;
- Our employees are spending excessive amounts of time chasing Courts for updates and reviewing client correspondence regarding update requests and and expressions of dissatisfaction.
Suggested Reforms
- Further training for Court staff to enable them to assist further with enquiries over the telephone;
- Increase in staffing levels to reduce hold wait times and email response times;
- Publish up-to-date reports to show current working positions for all County Courts to enable firms to provide Client’s with an accurate timeframes for their matters to be processed.
Upon review, we paid in the region of £6 million in fees to the Court in 2022.
Position on Prospective Fee Increase
The prospective rise in Court fees is not justified. Court users receive a poor level of service and there has been very little improvement in this regard. It is highly anticipated that this will only lead to further complaints from clients and result in a further decrease in profits for firms. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to progress matters, further infuriating our private clients and increasing the cost firms are having to incur in resources to continually chase the Courts on behalf of clients.
Yours Sincerely
DCB Legal Ltd
December 2024