128th Practice Direction Update to the Civil Procedure Rules (OCMC PD 51R)

CPR Amendments – 25 February 2021 Update

128^th Practice Direction Update to the Civil Procedure Rules (OCMC PD 51R)

 The Master of the Rolls and the Courts Minister have signed the 128^th Practice Direction Update to provide for further functionalities within the Online Civil Money Claims (OCMC) Pilot, PD51R.
The PD is effective immediately i.e. from 11am, 25^th February 2021. The pilot PD 51R currently runs until 30 November 2021.

The PD Update provides for the following:

• Making changes to the claim or response: amendments have been made for consistency of language and to reflect that there is no facility for the claimant themselves to alter the actual claim form. (If the claimant notifies the court that their email address or telephone number has changed, the court’s administrative records are altered, but the actual claim form remains stable.) A claim or response can be amended but requires the claimant or defendant to make an application to the Court.
• Removal of ability to use the OCMC website to request redeterminations of repayment plans in certain circumstances: removal of provisions allowing a party to use the OCMC website to request redetermination of a repayment plan in circumstances where there has been an admission or part admission that has led to a settlement agreement including a repayment plan, but then the settlement agreement has broken down and judgment is made on the terms of the settlement agreement.
• Requests and applications to change repayment plans in various circumstances: various changes, thus: to clarify the interrelationship between different provisions and procedures for requesting or applying for a change to a repayment plan; to correct form number references for the forms needed to apply for a change to a repayment plan; amendments so that claims must always be sent out of the pilot following an application for redetermination of a repayment plan under paragraph 7.45, irrespective of the nature of the change sought to the repayment plan.
• Clarification of destination of claims sent out of the pilot by legal advisers: to clarify that when a claim is sent out of the pilot by HMCTS legal advisers in certain circumstances, it is sent out to the ‘preferred court” as defined in the PD (at paragraph 1.1 of PD 51R).

Other changes: Rectifying drafting inconsistencies by introducing one form of spelling for ‘redetermination’ throughout the PD and removal of redundant provisions in relation to directions questionnaires.