Last updated on March 24th, 2015 at 05:19 pm

The increase will apply to the fee paid to court to commence proceedings on money claims, such as personal injury and medical negligence, where the claim is for a sum of over £10,000.  Fees for claims up to £10,000 will remain the same at between £35 and £455.

For claims of over £10,000, the new fee will be 5% of the amount claimed (including interest claimed) and the impact of the increase is astonishing.  For example, the previous maximum fee for a claim of over £300,000 was £1,920.  It will now cost £8,080 – an increase of 421%.  The maximum fee will be £10,000.  Claims of an unspecified amount will attract the maximum fee, which could end up being completely disproportionate to the award eventually received in a personal injury claim, for example.

The government says that the increase is to help ensure that courts are properly resourced with less subsidy from the tax payer, but there are concerns that costs will restrict access to justice, especially as the costs have to be paid up front, and have a huge impact on the UK’s reputation as a centre for commercial dispute resolution.

Criticism of the increase has been scathing, with the Civil Justice Council saying “It is a matter of grave concern that the ministry is contemplating such a significant reform, and one that carries with it potentially far-reaching and damaging consequences for access to justice, on such a poor evidence-base. To take a vitally important example, the draft explanatory memorandum makes clear that there is no knowledge of what the impact of this proposal will be on SMEs as a key sector of the court-user community and the wider economy.”

In its criticism, the Law Society said that it believed that the government seemed to be “on a mission to turn the courts into a profit centre” and that “people whose lives have been turned upside down by life-changing injuries suffered through no fault of their own may no longer be able to afford to access the courts to seek compensation for their care.”  The Law Society evidenced its protests with case studies such as one that involved a young girl who suffered severe brain damage because health professionals failed to diagnose meningitis when she was a toddler.  She needs high levels of care and accommodation and was living with her mother in unsuitable accommodation, where her mother had to carry her up several flights of stairs every day.  Court proceedings secured a financial settlement, but these proceedings would now cost £10,000.  Under new rules, the girl would not now qualify for legal aid (although she did at the time of the claim) and her mother would not be able to afford the fee, meaning it unlikely that she would be able to access the justice she deserves for her daughter.

Following vigorous criticism, earlier proposals to increase the court fee for obtaining a divorce from £410 to £750 were scrapped, along with suggested court fee increases of up to £20,000 on very high value cases, or a daily court fee of £1,000.  Whilst this does indicate that the government does take the views of the judiciary and other legal bodies seriously, there is no indication yet that it will revisit the current court fees increase, and ministers are now consulting on increases to the fee paid by landlords and mortgage lenders for the recovery of land, and for general applications.

We’ve signed the petition  “Ministry of Justice, David Cameron MP, Chris Grayling MP: Stop Court Fees increasing by over 600% on 9 March 2015” – because we think it is important.  If you want to sign, you can do so by clicking here to visit the petition site.

You can read the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers’ (APIL) response to the increases here