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05 March 2020
Issue: 7877 / Categories: Features , Procedure & practice
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Settled or not?

16963
District Judge Corkill advocates the need to choose the correct method of settlement
  • Notices of discontinuance: filing, serving and specifying.
  • Consent orders: agreed terms and enforcement.
  • Tomlin orders: applications and common errors.

‘Dear Judge…this claim has settled please vacate the hearing…’. Such letters are frequently seen in our box work from solicitors particularly on claims allocated to the small claims track. Is such a letter sufficient to conclude a claim? On reading the CPR this is not one of the methods by which a claim can be concluded.

Whether a claim is allocated to the small, fast or multi-track, when a settlement has been negotiated the parties should consider which of the methods prescribed by the CPR to use. The following is a summary of the most common methods used but before choosing one of them do familiarise yourself with the relevant rule, requirements and consequences.

To be effective, the notice must be filed, served on every party, if there is more than one defendant it must specify against which of

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NEWS

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Reforms designed to rebalance landlord-tenant relations may instead penalise leaseholders themselves. In this week's NLJ, Mike Somekh of The Freehold Collective warns that the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 risks creating an ‘underclass’ of resident-controlled freehold companies
Timing is everything—and the Court of Appeal has delivered clarity on when proceedings are ‘brought’. In his latest 'Civil way' column for NLJ, Stephen Gold explains that a claim is issued for limitation purposes when the claim form is delivered to the court, even if fees are underpaid
The traditional ‘single, intensive day’ of financial dispute resolution (FDR) may be due for a rethink. Writing in NLJ this week, Rachel Frost-Smith and Lauren Guiler of Birketts propose a ‘split FDR’ model, separating judicial evaluation from negotiation
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