Practice Directions

ANCILLARY RELIEF IN MATRIMONIAL CAUSES
– ESTIMATES OF COSTS

　

The costs of applications for ancillary relief relating to capital assets (applications for property adjustment and lump sum orders) are, in a great number of cases, so high in relation to the value of the assets involved that a judge will be unable to make a realistic determination without an approximate indication of the anticipated costs of each side.

          It is, moreover, in the interests of the parties themselves that each should be aware, as early as possible before the hearing, of their potential liability for costs. It has been found that if the parties themselves are made to realise that the value of the assets after payment of costs may be so reduced as to make litigation unjustified a sensible compromise can be effected.

         Estimates of costs on each side should therefore be prepared as early as possible for submission to the court at the court's request at any stage of the proceedings. At the time that the case is fixed for hearing, up-to-date estimates must be supplied to the court and the parties. Such estimates should differentiate costs already incurred from the expected costs of the hearing. They should also differentiate party and party costs from the balance payable by the client.