An approved budget turns out to be too low. More expert work is needed, disclosure grows, rehabilitation develops, the trial window moves. Can the court simply increase the budget because the extra expenditure looks reasonable?
Bassey v Whittaker & Watford Insurance Company Europe Ltd [2026] EWHC 2126 (KB), decided by Mr Justice Cavanagh on 10 August 2026, answers no. The existence of significant developments since the budgets were finalised is a necessary precondition before costs budgets can be varied, and where the parties have not agreed otherwise there is no general discretion to get round it.
This is not a novel proposition — the judgment builds on Master Kaye’s decision in Persimmon Homes Ltd v Osborne Clark LLP [2021] EWHC 831 (Ch). What Bassey supplies is clear High Court confirmation, and a set of facts showing exactly how a variation application fails.
What happened
The claim arose from a serious road traffic accident. Mr Bassey suffered very serious injuries, became a protected party and pursued the claim through his litigation friend. Liability was conceded, so the litigation ran on quantum.
| Stage | Figure |
|---|---|
| Claimant’s Precedent H, incurred and estimated | £1,981,163.55 |
| Approved on costs management, 18 December 2024 | £1,028,580.85 |
| Second defendant’s agreed budget | £341,382.01 |
| Increase later sought by Precedent T | £238,350 |
As the claim progressed the parties agreed changes to the timetable, covering expert evidence, rolling disclosure, further quantum witness statements, schedules of loss and the trial window. An order in November 2025 required Precedent Ts to be filed. The claimant then sought the £238,350 increase.
The finding that should have ended it
At the later costs management hearing District Judge McLoughlin considered the changes relied on and was not satisfied that they were significant developments.
On the face of CPR 3.15A that is the end of the application. But the judge went on to allow revision anyway, believing he was bound by the November 2025 order to permit it, and directed a further hearing to fix the amount.
The insurer appealed, and won.
There is no general discretion
Cavanagh J allowed the appeal. The power to revise an approved or agreed budget on account of developments during the litigation sits in CPR 3.15A, and its requirements cannot be sidestepped by reaching for general case management powers. The court’s discretion over how much to allow only arises once the gateway has been passed.
That closes off an argument which can look attractive when a budget is under pressure — that the increase is modest, or the work plainly reasonable, or the directions have changed, so the court can simply put it right. None of those is the question. The question is whether a qualifying development occurred.
A direction to file Precedent T decides nothing
This is the procedural trap, and it is worth reading carefully before drafting the next consent order.
The District Judge treated the November 2025 order as an agreement that the budgets could be revised. The High Court held it was nothing of the kind. It was procedural — it required the forms to be filed so that the court could later decide whether significant developments existed. It did not record any agreement that they had.
So there is a real difference between an order saying:
“The parties shall file Precedent T.”
and one recording:
“The parties agree that X constitutes a significant development.”
The first gets you a hearing. Only the second concedes the threshold. If a paying party is content to agree the second, get it in the order; if not, do not assume the first has done the work.
Foreseeability is doing the work
The most useful part of the judgment for anyone preparing a Precedent T is what did not qualify.
The developments relied on included accommodation changes, adjustments to rehabilitation and therapy, an extension of the trial window and additional expert reports. The court held these were within the reasonable contemplation of the parties at the budgeting stage. Moving home and adjusting therapy were, on the facts, known and anticipated.
That is not a finding that such matters are trivial. They generate real work and real cost. The point is narrower and harder: foreseeable work is not a significant development, however much of it there turns out to be.
| Unlikely to qualify | Capable of qualifying |
|---|---|
| A phase costing more than estimated | New evidence creating an expert issue nobody could have anticipated |
| Updating reports in a long-running quantum claim | An additional discipline the case did not previously need |
| Rehabilitation or accommodation developing as expected | An amended case changing the issues |
| A modest extension of the trial window | A direction from the court requiring substantive work nobody foresaw |
More work is not the same as a development
Suppose an expert phase was approved at £80,000 and is heading for £110,000. That £30,000 gap establishes nothing on its own. The question is why it arose.
If a genuinely unforeseen event created a new issue, there may be an application. If the original allowance was simply optimistic about ordinary work, Precedent T is not the answer — and after Bassey, saying so plainly to the client at the time is better than discovering it at assessment.
What this does to the original Precedent H
Bassey raises the stakes on the budget you file at the start, because a later event that was reasonably foreseeable cannot easily be recast as a development.
That puts the weight on assumptions. A phase should record what it actually contemplates — the expert disciplines, the number of reports, whether updates and joint statements are expected, conferences, supplementary questions, the extent of involvement through trial preparation, and the same for disclosure, witness evidence, records, schedules and counsel. Those assumptions are the baseline against which any later development gets measured, which is why getting Precedent H and its assumptions right at the CCMC repays the time.
Narrow assumptions do not manufacture a development
One tempting response is to write assumptions tightly — “assumes one report from the neurological expert” — on the theory that anything beyond becomes a development.
That is unsafe. If an updated report was reasonably foreseeable given the nature of the claim, the fact that the assumption mentioned only one does not by itself make the second one a qualifying development. The court is asking what could reasonably have been anticipated, not what the drafting happened to say. Good assumptions matter because they record the basis of the budget accurately, not because they let foreseeable work be reclassified later.
If the variation fails: CPR 3.18
A refused Precedent T does not automatically make the excess irrecoverable. Where a costs management order has been made and costs are assessed on the standard basis, CPR 3.18 requires the court to have regard to the last approved or agreed budgeted costs for each phase and not to depart from them unless there is good reason.
The judgment did not analyse CPR 3.18 in terms, but the judge’s view of that route was clear enough. It is much better to obtain a revision during the litigation than to throw yourself on the mercy of a costs judge at the end of the trial, and a party seeking to be allowed more than its budgeted figure after the event faces an uphill battle.
Good reason is not a delayed Precedent T
The two tests sit at different stages and do different jobs, and establishing good reason is not the same as being allowed the money.
| CPR 3.15A | CPR 3.18 | |
|---|---|---|
| When | During the litigation | At detailed assessment |
| Test | Significant development, promptly raised | Good reason to depart from the phase figure |
| Effect | The budget itself is revised | The budget stands; departure is permitted |
| Certainty | Resolved while the case is live | An uphill battle after the event |
Even where good reason is found, the receiving party still has to show the work was reasonably incurred, that the amount is reasonable and — on the standard basis — that it is proportionate. The one situation where the budget stops constraining recovery in the ordinary way is an indemnity costs order, which is what happened in Lawrence v Associated Newspapers — and that turns on conduct, not on the budget having been set too low.
Bassey and Car-Wizard: the two sides of CPR 3.15A
These were decided a week apart and reached opposite results. They are not in tension; they are the two halves of the same rule.
| Bassey v Whittaker | Car-Wizard v Vixen | |
|---|---|---|
| The development relied on | Expert reports, rehabilitation, accommodation, trial window | The court’s own direction for further damages submissions |
| Foreseeable? | Yes — within reasonable contemplation | No — foreseen by nobody when judgment was reserved |
| Stage of the litigation | Directions varied as the case ran | Trial still live, damages unresolved |
| Work already done? | Additional costs being incurred | Application preceded the work |
| Outcome | No variation | Variation allowed |
So the distinction is not early application against late application, and it is not small increase against large. The fuller reasoning on the successful side, including how Elvanite and Queensgate were distinguished on unexplained delay, is in our note on varying a costs budget during an adjourned trial.
In one sentence:
Car-Wizard shows a late variation can succeed where a genuine unforeseen development occurs; Bassey shows that no amount of additional work creates a variation jurisdiction where the threshold is absent.
What claimant firms should do
Budget foreseeable work properly at the outset
Deliberately under-budgeting on the assumption that Precedent T will repair it later is now a clearly identified risk rather than a tactic.
Write assumptions that record what the phase covers
They are the baseline the foreseeability question is measured against.
Monitor phases before they are exhausted
Not when the bill is drawn. By then both routes are worse.
Lead the application with the event
A Precedent T should open with what happened in the litigation, not with what has been spent. “We are £40,000 over” is the consequence.
Test foreseeability honestly before applying
Compare the development against the pleadings, the evidence known at the CCMC, the Precedent H assumptions, the existing directions and the ordinary requirements of this type of claim. If it was contemplated, the application is unlikely to survive.
Act promptly where the threshold is met
CPR 3.15A requires prompt submission, and delay is a separate problem even where the development is genuine.
Do not treat CPR 3.18 as the plan
It is a fallback, and the judge called it an uphill battle.
Why this matters in clinical negligence
These claims are exactly where the problem bites: multiple experts, updating medical evidence, changing prognosis, further treatment, rehabilitation, care and accommodation evidence, life expectancy, amended schedules, long timetables.
Every one of those can generate more work than budgeted. After Bassey, that is not the question. The question is whether it was reasonably foreseeable when the budget was prepared — which means the quality of the original Precedent H directly affects recoverability risk years later, and the bill that eventually gets drawn has to live with it. How the budget then feeds into the bill is covered in our guide to the clinical negligence Bill of Costs and Precedent S.
What a strong Precedent T has to answer
- What was budgeted — the phase and the assumptions it was approved on.
- What happened — the development, described precisely rather than as “the matter became more complex”.
- Why it was not foreseeable — what was known at the CCMC, and why this could not reasonably have been anticipated. After Bassey this is the question that decides it.
- What it caused — the additional costs attributable to that development, and no others. A variation is not an opportunity to repair unrelated under-budgeting.
- Why now — when it became apparent and when the costs consequence was identified.
Key takeaway
Precedent T does not exist to repair an inadequate budget. The court must first identify a qualifying significant development before the CPR 3.15A power is engaged at all, and no general discretion fills the gap.
For claimant firms the practical consequence is unglamorous but clear: budget foreseeable work properly at the outset, monitor the phases while the case is live, and move promptly when something genuinely unforeseen changes it.
We prepare Precedent H budgets, the assumptions behind them, Precedent R reports and Precedent T variations for claimant solicitor firms — see our costs budgeting service, or send us the file and we will confirm the fixed fee before any work begins.
Sources: Bassey v Whittaker & Watford Insurance Company Europe Ltd [2026] EWHC 2126 (KB), Mr Justice Cavanagh, 10 August 2026, from the approved judgment published by the National Archives; Persimmon Homes Ltd v Osborne Clark LLP [2021] EWHC 831 (Ch); and Car-Wizard Ltd v Vixen Surface Treatments Ltd [2026] EWHC 2177 (Ch). Rule references are to CPR 3.15A and CPR 3.18, and to Practice Direction 3D, which annexes Precedent T.