LAA Assessment Process - Important Amendment to the Guidance in respect of De Novo Assessments
Please click here for the updated guidance, which replaces the guidance below.
Further to our previous blog article last week in relation to the LAA’s decision to allow court assessments, pending a full consultation on the process, the LAA have released their own guidance on the new assessment procedure.
The LAA guidance is more detailed than that previously unveiled by the Law Society announcement, with a number of conditions in place. It is unclear whether the LAA’s understanding of the agreement reached with the Law Society is different from the Law Society’s understanding and therefore we may see further guidance on this issue.
The guidance provided by the LAA confirms that where a claim has been reduced on assessment, and you are not happy with that assessment then a de novo assessment by the Court may only take place where the following does not apply:
- The claim was submitted to LAA for assessment voluntarily prior to 17 August 2020;
- The claim was submitted to LAA voluntarily on or after 15 January 2021; or
- The claim would ordinarily have been assessed by LAA.
As a result, providers will not be able to fall back on a Court Assessment, for claims submitted to the LAA on or after Friday 15 January 2021.
If a de novo assessment is sought, then the provider should notify the LAA in advance of the submission of the paperwork to court. The LAA will treat the existing payment as a POA. It is important to note that if the claim is further reduced following the court assessment, the LAA will need to be notified and they will arrange the appropriate recoupment (so you cannot choose which assessment is greater).
A provider will need to prepare a detailed Bill of Costs for submission to the court, which means extra time and costs will be spent in preparing for the de novo assessment. The court will then assess the Bill of Costs and will need to provide you with an annotated Bill of Costs and EX80 A/B.
Subsequently, you will then need to create an ‘appeal bill’ in CCMS with the value of the claim being the balance between the original payment and the amount as allowed by the court. This should be done by creating a disbursement and selecting ‘Appeal % Uplift Assessment’.
A step by step guide can be found using the LAA guidance which can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/952702/Referring_an_LAA_Assessment_to_Court_v1.0.pdf
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