Source: http://civilprocedurerules.co.uk/cpc_rules.htm
Timestamp: 2018-10-24 02:03:30
Document Index: 340581159

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 7', 'art 16', 'art 22', 'art 22', 'art 21', 'art 8']

Claim production centre rules, Civil procedure rules, county court claims, county court judgments
CLAIM PRODUCTION CENTRE RULES
Role of the Claim Production Centre
Authority for issue of Claim
CPC Processing Requirements
Annex A - Practice Direction 7C
Annex B - Claim Details
Annex C - Data file Format
Annex D - Data file Advice Note
Annex E - List of County Court Code Numbers
Annex F - Issue Notification
1.1 The Claim Production Centre (CPC) is governed by The Civil Procedure Rules Part 7, rule 7.10(3) and supplemented by Practice Direction 7C (Annex A).
1.2 The purpose of the CPC is to relieve county courts of much of the routine repetitive work associated with the issue of straightforward money claims. The CPC accounts for the court fees, produces the, creates the court’s record and then envelopes and despatches of the claim to the defendant.
1.3 This document sets out the Code of Practice to be followed when issuing through the CPC. Organisations that can comply with this code and provide their claim information in a fixed format on magnetic media (see section 4) may issue their claims through the CPC. The CPC aim is to produce and despatch claims from requests received on magnetic media on the day of receipt.
1.4 The term “Centre User” will be used throughout this document to be a claimant issuing its own claims, possibly using an in-house solicitor, or it may be a solicitor who issues claims on behalf of many claimants.
1.6 The term “CPC Manager” will be used throughout this document to indicate the officer in charge of the CPC or another officer acting on his behalf.
2. ROLE OF THE CLAIM PRODUCTION CENTRE
2.1 The CPC shall handle such functions relating to the production of claims and other related matters as the Secretary of State may direct.
2.2 The initial business of the CPC shall be limited to the issue of claims and associated county court documentation from requests to issue presented on magnetic media by the Centre User.
2.3 The Centre User shall restrict all requests for issue of claims through the CPC to the type of work set out in Practice Direction 7C (Annex A). In particular, claims are limited to defendants who reside or carry on business within the jurisdiction, that is, in England or Wales.
2.4 For any purposes connected with the issue of claims the CPC shall act on behalf of the county court whose name appears on the claim or in whose name the claim is requested to be issued.
3. AUTHORITY FOR ISSUE OF CLAIMS THROUGH THE CPC
3.1 A claimant or solicitor acting on behalf of the claimant (a potential Centre User) shall give notice to the CPC Manager of his intention to issue claims through the CPC.
3.2 The CPC Manager shall confirm whether a potential Centre User may issue through the CPC. Upon giving such confirmation he/she shall allocate a distinguishing number known as the National Creditor Code or ‘CPC Number’ to the Centre User.
3.3 The ‘CPC Number’ shall be used at the CPC to identify the Centre User and authority for Centre User to issue through the CPC.
3.4 Where a Centre User is permitted to issue claims through the CPC, the CPC Manager shall allocate a range of claim numbers to the Centre User. These numbers will be unique throughout the County Court system. The Centre User shall assign a separate claim number from this range to every claim submitted for issue through the CPC.
3.5 Each claim request submitted by the Centre User for issue by the CPC shall contain the necessary party and claim details as set out in Annex B (This conforms to existing county court guidelines and failure to comply may result in withdrawal of the authority to issue through the CPC.)
4. USE OF MAGNETIC MEDIA FOR CLAIM ISSUE
4.1 The Centre user shall submit all requests to issue claims to the CPC on magnetic media.
4.2 The magnetic media options supported by the CPC shall be limited to:
(a) 3½” MS-DOS formatted high density diskette, written normally or using the PKZIP compression utility or
(b) electronic file transfer (see or request separate document “Electronic Transfer for County Court Bulk Centre Customers, Customer Information Pack”)
For ease of reference the magnetic media will be referred to as “data file” throughout sections 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the Code of Practice. The data content for each data file is specified at Annex C. Each data file shall be unlabelled and confirm to ANSI Standard ASCII Format.
4.3 Each data file submitted by the Centre User to the CPC shall consist of header information, identifying the Centre User and data file number, followed by the request data for each of the claims to be issued, and trailer information containing control totals at the end of the data file.
4.4 Prior to the submission of requests to issue claims on data file, the Centre user shall submit test data files for processing by the CPC. The accuracy of the output produced from the test data files shall be confirmed as acceptable by the Centre User and the CPC Manager before live claims issue may commence.
4.5 The Centre User shall submit an advice note with each data file. The advice note shall include:
· CPC Number
· Number of requests on the data file
· Total fee amount payable
· Date of the data file
· Sequence number to uniquely identify the data file (see example at Annex D)
· a signed Statement of Truth
4.6 Failure to produce an advice note will result in delay to the processing of the data file.
4.7 Where the data file is sent by FTP, the advice note may be sent by fax or by email to: customerservice.cpc@hmcourts-service.gsi.gov.uk and must reach the CPC by 10am. Failure to receive the advice note will result in delay to the processing of the file.
4.8 The Centre User shall give the CPC Manager reasonable notice of any occasion on which he desires to issue more than 3,000 claims on one day. The CPC Manager reserves the right to offer alternative claim issue dates if other data files of over 3,000 claims are already booked for the date requested by the Centre User.
4.9 Where advance notice has been given, the Centre User shall submit a maximum of 12,000 claim records per data file.
5. DATA INPUT REQUIREMENTS
5.1 The CPC Number shall be quoted by the Centre User on all data files sent to the CPC for processing and included on any written correspondence.
5.2 The Centre User shall provide the name of the authority for the particulars of claim in advance to the CPC. If there are circumstances where a Centre User uses more than one name, each new occurrence of the name shall be treated as a new Centre User (eg different solicitor acting).
5.3 Where the same claimant details are to be used on all claims issued by a Centre User, then these details may be given in advance to the CPC.
5.4 Where a Centre User is a solicitor or uses a different correspondence name and/or address from that given in the claimant details then such details shall be given in advance to the CPC.
5.5 Claim Numbers from the range allotted to the Centre User by the CPC Manager shall be assigned sequentially by the Centre User to any claims included on the data file sent for processing. Each claim number from the range shall be prefixed by a year identified e.g. 4 for 2004. At the beginning of a new calendar year the Centre User shall revert to the first number in the range for the succeeding years issue and change the year identity to reflect the new year.
5.6 The Centre User shall provide the claim data on each data file in claim number order. Each claim number shall be used once only by the Centre User.
5.7 The Centre User shall use the CPC supplied court code number to identify the court in whose name each claim shall issue. A list of the CPC court codes is included at Annex E.
5.8 If the Centre User submits more than one data file at a time each data file shall have the standard header and trailer records which relate to that individual file and must be accompanied by a separate Advice Notice.
5.9 The Centre User shall include an ascending sequence number on each header record to ensure that no file is processed twice. Each customer will start with sequence 001 and increment each file by one until 999 is reached, then revert back to 001.
5.10 File names on data files will be in the following format ‘9999xx.999’. The first set of numbers will be the Centre User’s code, the characters will be ss for claims. The file extension will be the sequence number.
6. CPC PROCESSING REQUIREMENTS
6.1 The Centre User-supplied data files shall be validated by the CPC to ensure that all necessary fields have been entered, that the fees have been correctly calculated, that the costs are within the scale allowed and that the claim numbers have not been previously used.
6.2 The date of issue of the validated claims shall be determined by the CPC. Where the data file and Advice Notice are both received by 10:00am the date of issue shall be the same as the date of receipt. In all other instances the date of issue shall be the next working day following receipt.
6.3 A summary issue/service notification shall be produced by the CPC for each data file processed and despatched to the Centre User (example at Annex F).
6.4 The claim documentation shall be printed by the CPC from the information on the data file and from claimant, solicitor and particulars of claim authority details supplied in advance by the Centre User.
6.5 Each claim shall be issued in the name of the court supplied by the Centre User. Where the Centre User supplies a court which has been closed, or which is not present within the courts listed at Annex E, then the request to issue shall be rejected and shall be reported as not issued.
6.6 Where validation errors on the data file exceed a maximum of 10, the CPC shall return the file to the Centre User with details of the errors found and confirmation that no claims have been issued (see example at Annex G).
6.7 The CPC shall effect service of all valid claims on the defendant by first class post within 2 working days of the date of issue of the claim. The claim will be deemed served on the defendant on the fifth day after issue, regardless of whether that is a Saturday or Sunday.
6.8 Notice of non-service shall be given by the CPC to the Centre User on all claims returned by the Post Office as undeliverable. The CPC shall forward the undelivered claim to the Centre User and advise the appropriate county court. The Centre User shall pursue all proceedings subsequent to issue at the court named on the claim.
7.1 Fees for issue of claims at the CPC shall be payable at the CPC.
7.2 Payment for fees for issue of claims shall precede or accompany the receipt of the data file by the CPC.
7.3 Centre Users may maintain a fee deposit account with the CPC or submit payment by single cheque for each data file of claims fees. Alternatively, payment of fees can be made via BACS. Full account details will be supplied on request.
7.4 All cheques should be made payable to “HMCS”.
7.5 Any underpayment of fees shall result in the Centre User being asked to submit a further cheque within 3 working days. In cases of substantial underpayment the CPC Manager may decline to issue the claims until the balance of fees has been supplied.
7.6 Where no fee deposit account is maintained by a Centre User at the CPC any overpayment or refund due to rejected requests shall be refunded by the CPC by payable order as soon as the input data has been rejected.
PRACTICE DIRECTION – PRODUCTION CENTRE
THIS PRACTICE DIRECTION SUPPLEMENTS CPR RULE 7.10
In this Practice Direction
‘the Centre’ means the Production Centre.
‘Centre user’ means a person who is for the time being permitted to issue claims through the Centre, and includes a solicitor acting for such a person.
‘officer’ means the officer in charge of the Centre or another officer of the Centre acting on his behalf.
‘national creditor code’ means the number or reference allotted to a Centre user by the officer.
‘Code of Practice’ means any code of practice which may at any time be issued by the Court Service relating to the discharge by the Centre of its functions and the way in which a Centre user is to conduct business with the Centre.
For any purpose connected with the exercise of its functions, the Centre will be treated as part of the office of the court whose name appears on the claim form to which the functions relate, or in whose name the claim form is requested to be issued, and the officer will be treated as an officer of that court.
The functions of the Centre include the provision of a facility which, through the use of information technology, enables a Centre user to have claim forms issued and served, whether or not those claim forms are to be treated as issued in the Northampton County Court or in another county court.
If a Centre user issues claim forms in the name of Northampton County Court, the functions of the Centre also include:
the handling of defences and admissions,
the entry of judgment in default, on admission, on acceptance, or on determination,
the registration of judgments,
the issue of warrants of execution,
where the defendant is an individual, the transfer to the defendant's home court of any case that is to continue following the filing of a defence or where a hearing is required before judgment; or, where the defendant is not an individual, the transfer to the court for the area of the claimant's, or where he is represented, his solicitor's, address; and
the transfer to the defendant’s home court of any case for an oral examination or where enforcement of a judgment (other than by warrant of execution) is to follow.
Where the officer is to take any step, any rule or Practice Direction which requires a document to be filed before he does so will be treated as complied with if the data which that document would contain is delivered to the Centre in computer readable form in accordance with the Code of Practice.
Data relating to more than one case may be included in a single document or delivery of data.
CPR Rule 6.3(3) (copies of documents to be served by court) does not apply to any document which is to be produced by electronic means from data supplied by a Centre user.
Paragraph 8.3 of the practice direction supplementing CPR Part 16 (statements of case), which requires documentation to be attached to the particulars of contract claims, does not apply to claims to be issued by the Centre.
The practice direction supplementing CPR Part 22 (statements of truth) is modified as follows:
a single statement of truth may accompany each batch of requests to issue claim forms and may be in electronic form,
the form of such a statement should be as follows: ‘I believe that the facts stated in the attached claim forms are true.’, and
the signature of the appropriate person (as to which see section 3 of the practice direction supplementing CPR Part 22) may be in electronic form.
The Centre will not issue any of the following types of claim:
a claim against more than two defendants,
a claim against two defendants where a different sum is claimed against each of them,
a claim where particulars of claim separate from the claim form are required,
a claim against the Crown,
a claim for an amount in a foreign currency,
a claim where either party is known to be a child or patient within Part 21 of the Civil Procedure Rules,
a claim where the claimant is a legally assisted person within the meaning of the Legal Aid Act 1988,
a claim where the defendant’s address for service as it appears on the claim form is not in England or Wales.
a claim which is to be issued under Part 8 of the Civil Procedure Rules.
Only a Centre user may issue or conduct claims through the Centre.
A Centre user must comply with the provisions of the Code of Practice in his dealings with the Centre.
The Code of Practice will contain provisions designed to ensure that the Centre can discharge its functions efficiently, and it may in particular provide for:
the forms of magnetic media that may be used,
the circumstances in which data may or must be supplied in magnetic form,
the circumstances in which data may or must be supplied in a document and the form that such a document must take,
how often data may be supplied,
the numbering of cases and data relating to cases,
data to be given to the Centre by the Centre user about cases which have been settled or paid or are otherwise not proceeding, and
accounting arrangements and the method of payment of fees.
The Court Service may change the Code of Practice from time to time.
The officer may make the following orders:
an order to set aside a default judgment where, after that judgment has been entered, the claim form in the case is returned by the Post Office as undelivered,
an order to set aside a judgment on application by a Centre user,
an order to transfer a case to another county court for enforcement or for a judgment debtor to attend court for questioning.
This paragraph applies where a Centre user has issued a claim in the Northampton County Court and the defendant has filed a defence to the claim or to part of the claim.
On the filing of the defence the officer will serve a notice on the Centre user requiring the Centre user to notify him within 28 days whether he wishes the claim to proceed.
If the Centre user does not notify the officer within the time specified in the notice that he wishes the claim to proceed the claim will be stayed, and the officer will notify the parties accordingly.
The proceedings will not be transferred as provided by paragraph 1.3(2)(e) until the Centre user notifies the officer that he wishes the claim to continue.
The following details of claims to be commenced shall be given to the CPC.
Full name and address or place of business, where the claimant is:
· a company registered under the Companies Act 1985 the address of the registered office and described as such
· a person trading in a name other than his own
· His own name followed by the words “Trading as” and the name which he trades under.
· two or more co-partners suing in the name of their firm described as ‘a Firm’
· an assignee; described as such and the name, address and occupation of the assignor
Where a solicitor is acting, the name and address of the solicitor.
For each defendant named in the Claim form
The defendant’s surname, title (where known), and names in full if possible, or at least his or her initials.
The defendant’s address or place of business. This address must include the postcode.
Where two defendants are to be included on the claim form separate name and address details shall be included for each defendant, (e.g. the address and surname shall be repeated even where the details are common to each defendant.
Where the defendant is:
A person trading in a name other than his own and who is sued under such a name: add “A Trading Name”.
Two or more co-partners sued in the name of their firm: describe as “A Firm”.
Completion of the particulars of claim is the responsibility of the user. A statement of the facts of the claim including any relevant dates and sufficient detail to inform the defendant of the nature of the claim against him/her/them. It is not sufficient to include a statement that “full particulars having been delivered to the defendant”.
Where the claim relies upon an agreement eg rental or credit, full details of such an agreement must be provided. The details must include:
* parties to the agreement
* subject matter to the agreement
Where interest is claimed the rate, period amount and type of interest shall be given. Where interest is claimed from the date of issue the Centre User must comply with Section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984.
The particulars of claim may also contain details of any telephone/helpline number or instructions for payment which the Centre User wishes to convey to the defendant.
The total amount of the claim, including the amount of the court fee tendered and the amount of solicitors costs claimed must not exceed £99,999.99.
DATA FILE FORMAT ANNEX C
NAME FORMAT LENGTH TYPE COMMENTS
(9 = Numeric) (M = MANDATORY)
(X = Alphanumeric)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------
File Head Record
Record Type 9 1 M 1 = Header Record
CPC Number 9 4 M Centre User number
File Sequence No 9 3 M Ascending sequence number
Filler X 1983 The remainder of the File Header record is filled with spaces.
Record Type 9 1 M 2 = Request Record
Claimant Details X 7 lines
of 30 This data item will be completed by those CPC Users who issue in more than one Claimant name. The details have not been separated into name, address, postcode, registered office or any other fields since the CPC will manipulate this field as a whole.
Claimant/Solicitor
Reference X 24 This data item may vary for each request.
Claim Number X 8 M The first character is numeric which denotes the year of the claim issue (eg ‘4’ for 2004). The next two characters are alpha which will remain constant followed by five characters allocated from your exclusive range
County Court Code 9 3 M LCD standard codes, (see Annex E). The Code will be used to identify the court details from the CPC System.
Defendant (1) Name X 2 lines M Two defendants MUST be specified
of 30 separately, even if they have the same address.
Defendant (1) Address X 5 lines M To be formatted by the Claimant.
DATA FILE FORMAT (Cont.)
(9 = Numeric) (M = Mandatory
(X = Alphanumeric) Non-Mandatory
uncompleted fields
will be space filled)
Defendant (1) Postcode X 8 M Defendant postcode to be specified as a separate field. This may allow sorting by postcode prior to printing of the claims.
Defendant (2) Name X 2 lines
Defendant (2) Address X 5 lines
Defendant (2) Postcode X 8 M
Filler X 3 lines of 30 Formerly the brief description of the claim field – this space should now be space filled
Filler X 3 lines Formerly the cause of action field - this field
of 30 should now be spaced filled.
Claim Amount 9 7 M This should be inclusive of any interest claimed and is used as a base for the fee calculation.
/Cont............
Court Fee 9 5 M
Solicitors Costs 9 5
Total Amount 9 8 M Total of above 3 fields
Particulars of Claim X 24 lines M To be formatted by the Claimant
Filler X 24
Record Type 9 1 M 3 - Trailer Record
Total Number of Requests 9 5 M Total number of requests on the file.
Total Court Fee 9 9 M Total of court fees on request records.
Total Claim Amount 9 10 M Total of claim amounts on requests records.
Filler X 1966 The remainder of the File Trailer Record is filled with spaces to achieve a record equal to that of a Request Record.
1. ALL NON-MANDATORY UNCOMPLETED FIELDS SHALL BE SPACE FILLED.
2. ALL NUMERIC FIELDS SHALL BE PADDED OUT WITH “0” ZEROS.
3. THE THREE RECORD TYPES (HEADER, REQUEST & TRAILER) SHALL BE SPACE FILLED TO A LENGTH 1991 BYTE RECORDS.
THE DATA FILE REQUIREMENT IS FOR ANSI STANDARD ASCII UNLABELLED FILES.
THE DATA FILES MAYBE OF:
A) 3½” MS-DOS FORMATTED HIGH DENSITY DISKETTE, WRITTEN NORMALLY OR USING THE PKZIP COMPRESSION UTILITY
B) FTP FIXED LENGTH (ELECTRONIC FILE TRANSFER) (SEE SEPARATE INSTRUCTIONS)
THE DATA FILE WILL CONSIST OF FIXED LENGTH 1991 BYTE RECORDS PREFERABLY IN 7964 BYTE BLOCKS.
CPC Customer No :
Date of Media :
Media Sequence Number :
Media Type/Format :
3.5” Disk Dos
3.5” Disk Pkzip
FTP Fixed length
Number of Requests :
Claim Numbers :
Total Fee Payable :
I believe that the facts stated in the attached claim forms are true
I am duly authorised by the claimant to sign this statement
Name of claimants solicitor’s firm____________________________________________________
Signed ________________________ position or office held____________________
*(Claimant)(Litigation Friend)(Claimants solicitor) (if signing on behalf of firm or company)
County Court Codes
(except FO)
CPC/CCBC
Conwy & Colwyn
Mayors & City of London
PA to PC
Summons Production Centre
Notification of Issue
Date: 02-JUN-2004
ANY COMPANY Customer Code 1234 Total Number of Requests9
ANY TOWN Tape Sequence Number 009 Lowest Claim Number 4XX12345
POSTCODE Date of Issue 02-Jun-04 Highest Claim Number 4XX12353
Date of Service 07-Jun-04 Number of Invalid Requests 3
Number of Claims Issued 6
Total Fees on Tape 1077.00
Total Fee Due for Claims Issued 738.00
Total Invalid Fees 339.00
Details of invalid requests
Claim Number Claimant/Solicito Fee Reason For Rejection
4XX12345 CO123 113.00 CCBC CUSTOMER USING NON-CCBC COURT CODE
4XX12346 CO3454 113.00 CCBC CUSTOMER USING NON-CCBC COURT CODE
4XX12347 CO2323 113.00 PARTICULARS OF CLAIM ABSENT
ANY COMPANY Customer Code 1234
ANY TOWN Tape Sequence Number 009
POSTCODE Date Processed 02-Jun-04
* The Claims requested on this tape have not been issued *
Payment Received 1077.00
Refund of Fee Attached
Details of first 11 requests
(Claim requests subsequent to these have not been checked)
Claim Number Claimant/Solicitor Fee Reason For Rejection
4XX12345 CO123 113.00 CLAIM NUMBER ALREADY ISSUED
4XX12346 CO3454 113.00 CLAIM NUMBER ALREADY ISSUED
4XX12347 CO2323 113.00 CLAIM NUMBER ALREADY ISSUED
4XX12348 CO54355 113.00 CLAIM NUMBER ALREADY ISSUED
4XX12349 CO548498R 113.00 CLAIM NUMBER ALREADY ISSUED
4XX12350 CO154497 113.00 CLAIM NUMBER ALREADY ISSUED
4XX12351 CO156749 113.00 CLAIM NUMBER ALREADY ISSUED
4XX12352 CO1345679 113.00 CLAIM NUMBER ALREADY ISSUED
4XX12353 CO1234782 113.00 CLAIM NUMBER ALREADY ISSUED
4XX12354 CO965885 113.00 CLAIM NUMBER ALREADY ISSUED
ANY COMPANY Customer Code 1234 Total Number of Requests 9
Date of Service 07-Jun-04 Number of Invalid Requests 0
Number of Claims Issued 8
Number of Claims Withdrawn 1
Total Fee Due for Claims Issued 1004.00
Total Invalid Fees 0.00
Total Withdrawn Fees 73.00