UK: Court Of Protection Guideline Hourly Rates – The Sequel

You might remember that following the PLK judgment in October 2020, deputyship firms were finally allowed to increase their hourly rates after ten years.  As this article 'Court of Protection guideline hourly rates' explained, over those ten years the overhead costs incurred by firms doing deputyship work had risen but the amount that could be charged for that work had stayed still.  The case was brought because of concern about the sustainability of deputyship work if costs such as salaries, building costs, IT costs etc continued to rise but the hourly rates that could be charged did not. 

The PLK case allowed deputies an inflationary rise.  Unfortunately, since that case we and other firms have seen very varied application of the new rates at the Senior Court Costs Office, the organisation which assesses Deputy's costs and decides how much they can charge. 

Quite separately from PLK, the Civil Justice Council has conducted a review of the guideline hourly rates charged by the profession.  That review has now been published and the rates have been confirmed. 

The National 2 rates, which Wrigleys' Court of Protection Team operates, are fairly similar to the PLK rates, being slightly higher for more senior fee earners and slightly lower for more junior fee earners. 

For anyone looking at deputyship costs for the last calendar year there will be three lots of rates to take into account, as set out in the tables below:

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