The intermediate track and fixed recoverable costs: where your claim lands now

Where the four tracks now sit

Civil Procedure Rule 26.1 now provides for four case management tracks: the small claims track, the fast track, the intermediate track and the multi-track. Each is a different procedural regime, with its own expectations about evidence, hearings and costs. Once a defence is filed, the court’s first job is to decide which regime the claim belongs in.

The small claims track remains the normal track for any claim valued at not more than £10,000, with special, lower limits for the personal injury element of injury claims and for housing repair claims by tenants. It is the informal track, designed to be used without lawyers. The fast track is the normal track for monetary claims worth not more than £25,000 which are not suitable for the small claims track, but only where the court considers that the trial is likely to last no longer than one day and that oral expert evidence is likely to be limited to one expert per party in any field, in no more than two fields.

The intermediate track is the normal track for a claim that suits neither the small claims track nor the fast track, where the monetary relief claimed is worth not more than £100,000, the court considers that, managed proportionately, the trial will not last longer than three days, oral expert evidence is likely to be limited to two experts per party, and the claim is brought by one claimant against one or two defendants, or by two claimants against one defendant. Everything else is the multi-track. Value is the starting point, but not the whole test: trial length and expert evidence are part of each track’s definition, which is why the court asks about them before allocating.

What the intermediate track covers — and what it never covers

The intermediate track was created for the middle ground of County Court litigation: the straightforward building dispute, the modest professional negligence claim, the defended debt with real but limited issues — cases too heavy for a one-day fast track trial but not heavy enough for the multi-track.

The boundaries matter as much as the core. Some claims must be allocated to the multi-track whatever their value: mesothelioma and asbestos lung disease claims; clinical negligence claims, unless liability has been admitted in full in the defendant’s pre-action letter of response and no limitation defence is raised; claims about harm, abuse or neglect of children or vulnerable adults; claims the court could order to be tried by jury; claims against the police involving an intentional or reckless tort or a Human Rights Act remedy; and claims against a public authority for trespass to the person, unless the court considers multi-track allocation would not be in the interests of justice. A claim that includes non-monetary relief, such as an injunction, can go into the intermediate track only where the court also considers that to be in the interests of justice.

The four complexity bands

Allocation to either track comes with a second decision attached. When a claim is allocated to either track the court must also assign it to one of four complexity bands, numbered one to four as an ascending scale of allowable costs; the band determines the costs allowed under the tables in Practice Direction 45. The parties may agree the band, the court may direct a different band, and each party must state on their directions questionnaire the band they say applies, with any supporting information.

In the intermediate track, band one is for claims where only one issue is in dispute and the trial is not expected to last longer than one day, such as a personal injury claim where only liability or only quantum is disputed, a road accident claim without injury, or a defended debt claim. Band two covers less complex claims where more than one issue is in dispute, band three covers more complex multi-issue claims including noise induced hearing loss and other employer’s liability disease claims, and band four is reserved for claims unsuitable for bands one to three, including personal injury claims raising serious issues of fact or law.

The band is not a technicality to leave to the other side’s lawyers. It is the single number that most affects what costs will change hands, and it is set at the same early moment as the track itself. A party who says nothing about the band has, in effect, let the other side frame it.

What fixed recoverable costs mean for the winner

Fixed recoverable costs are the reason allocation matters so much. Where a fast track or intermediate track claim is one to which the fixed costs sections of Part 45 apply, and the parties agree or the court orders that a party is entitled to costs, the court may only award costs in an amount that is neither more nor less than the fixed costs allowed by the applicable table in Practice Direction 45, unless both parties have expressly agreed that Part 45 should not apply. The open-ended argument about what was “reasonable” is replaced by arithmetic.

For an intermediate track claim, the only costs allowed are the fixed costs in Table 14 of Practice Direction 45, plus permitted disbursements. The figures are staged: band one stage S1, covering work from before issue up to and including service of the defence, is £1,652 plus an amount equivalent to 3 per cent of the damages (a fixed figure in personal injury claims; a maximum, subject to assessment, in other claims). The bands therefore carry real money: the same claim, won at the same stage, recovers a different sum in a different band.

The fixed costs regime does not reach everything. It does not apply to a claim or counterclaim relating to a residential property or dwelling that includes a claim for possession, disrepair or unlawful eviction, save where the residential claim arises from a boundary dispute, and it does not apply where a party is a protected party. At the other end of the scale, the small claims track has always limited costs: the court may not order a party to pay another’s costs there except for defined items such as the fixed costs of issuing the claim, court fees, reasonable travel and accommodation expenses, capped sums for loss of earnings and expert fees, and further costs assessed against a party who has behaved unreasonably.

The lesson runs in both directions. A winning claimant recovers the fixed sum, not their actual spend; a losing party’s exposure is capped by the same table. Certainty is the point of the system, and it rewards parties who understand it early.

When the directions questionnaire arrives

The process begins when a defence is filed: a court officer provisionally decides the track that appears most suitable and serves a notice of proposed allocation on each party, requiring them to file a completed directions questionnaire and serve copies on the other parties. Where the case appears suitable for the fast track, intermediate track or multi-track, the date specified for complying must be at least 28 days after deemed service, and the court must serve the appropriate questionnaire on any unrepresented party. The notices are standard forms — N149A for the small claims track, N149B for the fast track, N149D for the intermediate track and N149C for the multi-track — and the questionnaire itself is Form N180 or N181.

The rules expect the parties to consult one another and co-operate in completing their questionnaires, and to try to agree the case management directions they will invite the court to make. For an unrepresented party facing a represented opponent, that duty is an opportunity, not a trap: it is the moment to ask which track and which band the other side proposes, and why.

The deadline is not a formality. In a County Court money claim, a party who does not comply with the notice by the specified date is served with a further notice requiring compliance within seven days, and a party who fails again has their statement of case struck out without any further order of the court. For a claimant that means the claim; for a defendant, the defence.

What a litigant in person should check first

The first check is the date the claim was issued. The intermediate track and the extended fixed costs regime apply only to claims where proceedings were issued on or after 1 October 2023; for personal injury claims the dividing line is generally a cause of action accruing on or after that date, and for disease claims a letter of claim sent on or after it. Earlier claims follow the older regime.

The second is what the claim is about, because the excluded categories and the residential property exception take many disputes out of the fixed costs tables entirely. The third is the complexity band. The fourth is what the regime means for an unrepresented party’s own recovery. Where the court orders a litigant in person’s costs to be paid by another party, those costs cannot exceed, except for disbursements, two-thirds of what would have been allowed to a represented party; where the litigant cannot prove financial loss, time reasonably spent is allowed at the rate set out in Practice Direction 46, currently £24 per hour.

Two features of the intermediate track repay attention later in the case. Directions there will normally limit the total length of a party’s witness statements and summaries to 30 pages and expert reports to 20 pages, oral expert evidence is limited to one witness per party unless a second is reasonably required and proportionate, and the trial time estimate must not exceed three days. And once directions have been given, the court may reallocate a claim out of the intermediate track only where there are exceptional reasons to justify doing so. The allocation decision is close to final — which is why the questionnaire stage deserves the care this article describes.