Buffer orders: The Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 5) Rules 2014 coming into force 5 June 2014

The Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 5) Rules 2014, and an associated making document implementing changes to Practice Directions (PD) 28 and 29, have been circulated to stakeholders by the Civil Procedure Rule Committee. The Statutory Instrument is expected to be published on the Legislation UK website shortly. The new provisions will take effect on 5 June 2014.

CPR 3.8(3) currently provides that where a rule, practice direction or court order requires a party to do something within a specified time and specifies the consequences of failure to comply, the time for doing the act in question may not be extended by the parties.

The Rules implement an important amendment to CPR 3.8(3) to allow parties to extend time limits in these circumstances by up to 28 days by prior written agreement, provided that any hearing date is not put at risk as a result. Consequential amendments to PD 28 and PD 29 are also made to reflect this change.

This amendment has been introduced as a result of the robust approach taken by the courts following the Jackson/civil litigation reforms to sanctions for parties who have failed to comply with time limits and also to granting relief from sanctions. This led to concerns about parties' ability to agree time extensions and consequently to the courts being flooded with applications so that parties could ensure that they obtained court approval for any extensions. Therefore the amendment to CPR 3.8 (3) to introduce what have been described as "buffer orders" will be welcomed by practitioners, as it will provide them with the flexibility to agree short time extensions without needing to seek court approval, provided they do not impact on any hearing date.

The Rules also implement a change to CPR 54.22 to provide that the President of the Queen’s Bench Division will be responsible for the nomination of both specialist planning judges and other judges to hear Planning Court claims.

Source: The Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 5) Rules 2014 and 73rd CPR Update: Practice Direction Amendments.