ADVANCE OBIT
The High Court’s Chancery Division will be no more from 1 October 2026. Dead, like the parrot. Well, sort of dead. It gets a name change to the Business and Property Division (BPD) and absorbs the Admiralty and Commercial Courts and the collection of other courts that make up the Business and Property Courts with its own president, no less, instead of chancellor. Chancery Masters will become Masters of the BPD. Chancery chambers will become the court office at the Rolls Building. This is too dreadful for words. The court guides will be updated in due course (oh no) and forms renamed BPD 1 to 33 in place of CH 1 to 33. Simplification of forms is promised. Senior judiciary are at pains to point out that, in practice, no material changes are intended. So why bother? The marketeers have come up with four key reasons: enhancement of profile and appeal, thereby increasing
