The typical costs order following CCMCs, or any hearing dealing with costs management and budgeting, is ‘costs in the case.’ However, there is now a noticeable trend in some courts that parties who are unrealistic with their budget will get penalised in costs, as indicated in the following cases.

 In Jenkins v Thurrock Council [2024] EWHC 2248 (KB) the budgeting hearing was listed separately to the case management hearing. The claimant’s budget was almost £1.2million to trial or £730k to a second CMC.  Following the case management hearing the claimant’s revised budget came down to £945k.

There were negotiations on the budgets, but these were unsuccessful, and the matter proceeded to a separate hearing in relation to the budget.

In a judgment criticising the Claimant, Master Thornett said:

“My conclusion is that the Claimant had presented and maintained an unrealistic and disproportionate approach to his estimated costs in the context of the demands and requirements of this case. He continued to do so despite the opportunity to modify his position in response respectively to the Defendant’s first Precedent R, observations made at the Case Management Conference and then overtures made by the Defendant during an intervening period before the Costs Management Hearing, a period as prescribed by the court specifically to facilitate appropriate discussion and negotiation.”

He ordered the Claimant pay the Defendant’s costs of and occasioned by the Costs Management Hearing, but he also ordered the costs of the Claimant’s costs management as assessed, to the extent recoverable, to be reduced by 35%.

In a similar vein, and in another Judgment from Master Thornett, the Claimant came under fire in Nicholas Worcester v Dr Philip Hopley [2024] EWHC 2181 (KB) because he felt they had over-inflated their costs budget. The Judge said:

“An assumption that costs management should always see an order “in the case” as much encourages parties to maintain an unrealistically ambitious approach and to proceed to the hearing without any consideration of their opponents’ submissions. In effect, to “chance their luck on the day”. That is hardly a reasonable or appropriate approach

In short, a party that resolutely proceeds to a separately listed costs management hearing with an overly ambitious budget should not readily assume that the court will be willing to see both its time and resources and those of opposing parties’ engaged without any potential consequence in costs”

There was no order as to costs for one costs management hearing and the Claimant was ordered to pay the defendant’s costs on another.

In GS Woodland Court GP 1 Ltd & Anor v RGCM Ltd & Ors [2025] EWHC 285 (TCC) the Claimant’s budget came to approximately £8.74 million but this was reduced to £4.2 million by the Court.

Mr Justice Constable said as follows:

“It is readily obvious from the scale of the reduction that the Claimants’ Precedent H was unrealistic both in terms of reasonableness and proportionality. It is not necessary to ascribe the word “success” or “loss” to that, but if it were, the Claimants ‘lost’ the hearing.

There is no particular reason in this case why that costs order should not be the ordinary costs order that is made when a party has ‘lost’: the losing party is deprived of its costs and has to pay the other parties’ costs to the extent claimed and assessed as reasonable.”

These judgements show that putting in a budget is never a ‘shot to nothing’ and any reasonable offers on a budget should be taken into account before having your budget considered by the Court.