Guidance

How to complete a Court of Protection paper bill of costs in the Senior Courts Costs Office

Published 1 June 2026

Overview

This guide will help you to complete a paper bill of costs regarding a Court of Protection (COP) matter.

This guide includes some general information that also applies to an e-bill bill of costs – however, if you will be using an e-bill of costs, you should refer to the e-bill template and guidance.

If you are applying as a professional legal representative or costs draftsperson, you should consider completing the e-bill rather than the paper bill.

If you are applying as a citizen (without a professional legal representative), make sure that you have authority to have your costs assessed. You may want to consider seeking legal representation or consulting a legal costs draftsperson.

Make sure you also read the guidance on how to submit a bill of costs for a Court of Protection matter at the Senior Courts Costs Office. This includes important information on:

• submitting your bill of costs with E-Filing
• how to submit supporting documents
• what happens next

Your costs

You must have the necessary authority to claim your costs and for them to be assessed at the Senior Courts Costs Office (SCCO). Make sure you apply the relevant case law. Further guidance is set out in the professional deputy costs guidance and the Senior Courts Costs Office (SCCO) guide.

Common claims that are not allowed include:

• time claimed for more than 3 minutes at Grade D for the making of a routine payment
• reconciliation of bank statements at higher than a Grade D
• routine updating of records
• incoming correspondence claimed separately in document time
• routine internal communications
• disbursements for fees which are fixed and paid out of the protected party’s estate, for example Land Registry or court fees – these should be included in the accounts to the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG)

Provide a clear and concise explanation of any work completed. This helps the costs officer to assess the reasonableness of the time claimed for the work undertaken.

Complete the paper bill

If applicable, download and complete your firm’s paper bill template. Do not create a new paper bill format if one is already in use.

If you do not have access to a template, you can find examples of paper bill templates in the Senior Courts Costs Office (SCCO) guide. You can use either template A or AA as appropriate.

You should complete the bill using Microsoft Word or another word processing tool rather than by hand – this will help make sure that the information you provide is legible and does not include any spelling mistakes that might be misinterpreted by the costs officer.

Introduction

The first page of the paper bill should include the:

• name of the protected party
• names of all parties, if the matter relates to contested proceedings
• OPG reference
• SCCO case number if one has already been allocated – if you are unsure, contact the SCCO to check before submission of the bill
• firm’s VAT registration number, if applicable
• court in which the proceedings commenced
• title of the bill setting out what the costs that are being claimed relate to, the period covered and the date of the order relied on for authority to assess the costs
• basis of assessment, which should be clear from the order – for example, standard or indemnity basis

Dates for general management bills

You must include the start and end dates of the period the bill covers in the bill title. Do not replace dates with phrases such as ‘from inception’ or ‘to end of deputyship’.

Check that the dates are correct and do not overlap with any other bills.

Pay attention to instances where the deputyship has transferred within a firm and the dates of the general management period are being realigned with the date of the new order.

If the period the bill covers is less than one year, make sure you explain this. If the reason for a shorter period is because the deputyship has transferred within the same firm, the bill should still cover at least 6 months.

Case background

Provide a background summary to the case to give an overview to the costs officer of important information and events.

This should include:

• in non-welfare cases, the protected party’s total net asset figure, if known, along with a breakdown to show, for example, the split between properties, bank accounts, investments and other assets (if you do not have this information, provide an explanation)
• the costs estimate provided to the OPG on the OPG 105 form (for general management bills)
• the history of the matter
• any care and case management history
• any safeguarding issues or concerns, particularly where they relate to costs you are claiming
• any applications that have been made in the period
• other information that you feel will assist the costs officer

For bills other than appointment of a deputy and general management, you must also provide details of the application to which the costs relate, the parties involved and key issues and details of events that have occurred.

Bill detail

At the start of the bill detail, you must include information about the fee earners claimed, including names, grades and details of the rates being claimed.

Work should be split accordingly if different guideline hourly rates (GHR) are claimed – for example where the work claimed is across different GHR periods.

Costs may include, as appropriate:

• meetings and communicating with the protected party
• meetings and communicating with other agents and work done by them
• meetings and communicating with other people or organisations, including offices of public records
• meetings and communicating with any other parties to the proceedings or any witnesses
• inspecting any property or place for the purposes of the proceedings
• work done on documents
• communicating with the court and with counsel
• attending court and meeting with the barrister
• work done in connection with settlement negotiations
• other work done for, or incidental to, the proceedings

Communicating with anyone includes letters, emails and calls. You should set out any that are not routine in chronological order.

Routine communications are letters, emails and calls that are claimed at 6 minutes and, because of their simplicity, should not be regarded as letters or emails of substance or telephone calls equivalent to a meeting. You should set these out as single items.

You should number each item claimed in the bill consecutively.

With meetings and communication, or other work done of or incidental to the proceedings – if the number of non-routine items is 20 or more, the claim for the costs should be for the total only and should refer to a full schedule included later in the bill.

If the bill contains more than one schedule, you should number each consecutively.

The remaining columns can be for recording, where appropriate, the:

• VAT
• disbursements – payments on behalf of your client
• profit costs – the cost of the work claimed

If you are a non-professional deputy, you may want to consider seeking legal advice to help you understand how to complete a bill of costs.

At the end of the bill detail, you should include a:

• summary with the totals for each column in each part
• bill breakdown of profit costs, disbursements, and the associated VAT and court fee paid for the assessment of the bill

Schedule of work done

This section should include all other work that is being claimed, for example, time spent considering documents. This should be listed in chronological order and should include:

• the date the work was done
• a summary of the work and the details of the fee earner undertaking the work
• the time claimed for in hours and minutes

At the end of the schedule of work, you should total the amount of time you are claiming for each fee earner.

Best practice

There are several examples of best practice that will help the costs officer when completing their provisional assessment:

• avoid using repetitive, general statements throughout the bill which provide little information – for example ‘considering position or correspondence and deciding how to proceed’ or ‘perusing file and considering way forward’
• when recording payments in document time, include to whom or for what reason the payment is being made
• when claims are made for internal communications, make sure they clearly detail the fee earners involved and what is being discussed
• where appropriate, each cost should specify the grade of the fee earner
• where fee earners are referenced by their initials throughout the bill, their grade (A, B, C or D) should also made clear
• where a file note refers to the drafting of documents, you must also include copies of the actual documents in the supporting documents
• counsel’s fees should always be included in the bill of costs for assessment as a disbursement, not in the OPG accounts
• make sure you apply the correct guideline hourly rates for the period

Final costs certificate

Once you are ready to accept the provisional assessment you must apply to the SCCO for a final costs certificate. Once sealed and approved, this gives you authority to obtain the funds from the protected parties estate.

To apply for your final costs certificate, submit the following documents to the SCCO using HMCTS E-Filing. If you are a non-professional user or acting in person, you can also submit by post.

A copy of the provisionally assessed bill

This should be recalculated to take into account the costs officer’s decisions. You can either show the recalculations on the original version, or you can submit a new recalculated version of the bill, as well as the original. You should highlight any changes made by the costs officer in colour on the recalculated version to allow easy comparison of the documents.

The costs officer may have recalculated the bill for you. If you agree with their figures, you do not need to provide your calculations. However, always check the entire bill to be sure that there are no areas where they have asked you to recalculate or made other directions.

A completed summary sheet

This shows a breakdown of the costs claimed, the reductions made and the costs allowed.

Where a costs officer has given directions in the bill you must answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to indicate whether you have complied with it and, if not, why.

Where the direction is about service of the bill on interested parties, you must include the date the bill was served. Make sure the period for objections to be raised has expired before filing your request for a final costs certificate.

A completed final costs certificate

Fill out a final costs certificate using the electronic templates. There are 2 different versions of the template. You must select the appropriate template based on the type of costs claimed in your bill.

If your bill:

• is for annual management costs alone, use the template labelled ‘FCC Annual Mgmt’
• involves any other type of costs, use the template labelled ‘FCC not Annual Mgmt’

Contact the SCCO for copies of the latest templates and the summary sheet.

Get help and support

If you have a query or need to provide an update, you can contact the SCCO by email.

This includes to update that the protected party has either died or regained capacity. Email the SCCO with the date of death or date the order was discharged. The SCCO office will let you know the next steps.

Email: scco@justice.gov.uk

We aim to respond within 5 working days.