Is there a Points of Dispute and Replies template?
Yes, but not in the sense many practitioners mean when they search for one.
For detailed assessment, Precedent G is the prescribed structure. PD 47 paragraph8.2 says Points of Dispute must follow Precedent G, so far as practicable, and paragraph 12.2 says the same for Replies. That gives the parties a required format.
It does not give the receiving party permission to use a bank of standard Replies. In fact, PD 47 paragraph 12.1 expressly says the opposite. Replies must be limited to points of principle and concessions, and must not contain general denials, specific denials or standard-form responses.
A useful Precedent G is therefore not a document containing forty stock answers such as “The time claimed is reasonable and proportionate and is maintained.” The real value of the form is its structure: it forces the parties to identify the actual dispute, put matters of principle first, identify the affected items and keep repetitive arguments out of the assessment.
So the answer to “can I use a Points of Dispute and Replies template?” is this. Use Precedent G as the template for the document. Do not use templated Replies as a substitute for analysing the actual Points of Dispute.
What Precedent G actually requires
PD 47 paragraph 8.2 requires Points of Dispute to be short and to the point. The paying party should first identify any general point or matter of principle which needs to be decided before the court considers individual items. That might include:
- the recoverable hourly rates;
- whether a particular category of expert evidence was reasonably required;
- whether a particular phase is said to be outside the costs entitlement;
- whether work is said to duplicate another category;
- whether a particular approach to delegation is challenged.
The document should then move to the specific items affected by those principles.
Precedent G is designed to avoid repeating the same argument against dozens of items. Where one Point applies to multiple entries, the relevant item numbers can be identified in the left-hand column rather than reproducing substantially the same objection over and over.
That is particularly useful in a clinical negligence Bill. A paying party may have one real objection to Grade A involvement in the disclosure phase, but that objection affects twenty separate entries. Or one objection to the level of expert work undertaken on causation, which affects several disbursements and the associated solicitor attendances. A properly drafted Precedent G identifies the principle once and then identifies the items to which it applies.
The same discipline should carry through to Replies.
The Timetable Decides More Than the Arguments
Detailed assessment in clinical negligence runs on a sequence of fixed periods, and more recovery is lost to those periods than to any single argument about an item in the bill. The fees payable along the way changed on 13 July 2026 — the current figures are in our note on the updated EX50 court fees.
- Three months to commence detailed assessment proceedings, running from the judgment or order, the notice of discontinuance, or acceptance of an offer to settle (CPR 47.7).
- 21 days for the paying party to serve Points of Dispute after service of the notice of commencement (CPR 47.9(2)).
- 21 days for an optional Reply, running from service of the Points of Dispute (CPR 47.13).
- Three months from the expiry of the period for commencing detailed assessment proceedings to file a request for a detailed assessment hearing (CPR 47.14).
Two of those cut against the paying party. A party who serves Points of Dispute late may not be heard further in the detailed assessment proceedings without the permission of the court, and where no Points of Dispute are served within the period the receiving party may request a default costs certificate under CPR 47.11. On a clinical negligence bill that is a substantial remedy, and it is worth diarising the expiry date rather than waiting to see what arrives.
The paying party also has an obligation that is easy to overlook: PD 47 para 8.3 requires an open letter accompanying the Points of Dispute stating what sum, if any, is offered in settlement of the total costs claimed. Where that letter is missing, or offers nothing, it is worth saying so early.
Where the Budget Bites First
Most clinical negligence claims of any size are costs-managed, and that changes what detailed assessment is actually about. On a standard basis assessment CPR 3.18 requires the court to have regard to the last approved or agreed budget and not to depart from it without good reason.
The practical consequence is that the budgeted phases are largely settled before the Points of Dispute are drafted. What is left is incurred costs, which the budget does not protect in the same way, and the question of whether work has been placed in the phase it belongs to. That is where the substance of a clinical negligence challenge now sits, and it is why the budget and the bill have to be read against each other before any Reply is written. Our guide to clinical negligence costs budgets and the CCMC deals with how those phases are approved in the first place.
What Paying Parties Actually Challenge
Clinical negligence bills attract a recognisable set of objections. They are predictable, which means they can be drafted against rather than argued about afterwards.
1. Incurred costs
Pre-budget work is the first target, because it falls outside the protection of the approved budget. Investigation, records review and early expert work often sit here on a clinical file, and they need to be justified on their own terms.
2. Expert fees
Clinical negligence is expert-heavy, frequently across several disciplines, and expert fees are the largest disbursement in most bills. Expect challenges to the number of experts, the rate, the time spent on records, conference attendance and the cost of joint statements.
3. Medical reporting organisation charges
Where reports are obtained through an MRO, the charge is now treated as a disbursement rather than outsourced profit costs, and the mark-up is the point in issue. We deal with that separately in our note on JXX v Archibald and the 25% MRO mark-up. Both that decision and the wider question of recoverability of medical reporting organisation fees are before the Court of Appeal in March 2027, so treat the 25% figure as a first instance benchmark rather than a settled ceiling.
4. Medical records costs
Records in clinical claims are voluminous, and the cost of obtaining, paginating and reviewing them is regularly disputed. The bill should show what was obtained, from whom and why, rather than presenting a single unexplained figure.
5. The breach and causation split
Where a claim succeeds on breach but the causation case narrows, paying parties argue that work directed at abandoned allegations is irrecoverable. Time recording that distinguishes breach from causation makes that argument answerable.
6. Seniority and delegation
Clinical negligence properly requires senior involvement, but not on every task. Expect the paying party to identify routine work carried out at a senior grade, and to say the file was under-delegated.
7. Hourly rates
Rates are challenged in almost every clinical bill, usually alongside grade rather than instead of it. The 2026 Guideline Hourly Rates are the starting point, but a claim above them has to be justified on the facts of the file, not asserted.
8. Counsel’s fees
Brief fees, conference fees and advice on quantum are all open to challenge, particularly where leading and junior counsel were both instructed.
9. Phase and task allocation
Where the bill is electronic, work placed in the wrong phase invites the argument that a phase has been exceeded when it has not. How the bill is built matters here, and we cover it in our guide to Precedent S and the electronic bill.
Replies That Comply With the Rules
A Reply is optional, but where one is served PD 47 para 12.1 limits it to points of principle and concessions only. It must not contain general denials, specific denials or standard form responses.
That rules out the line-by-line Reply that answers every item in turn. A compliant Reply identifies the points of principle that decide groups of items, concedes what is properly conceded, and leaves the rest to the assessment. Conceding early is not a weakness: it narrows the hearing and it is visible when the costs of assessment are decided.
Points of Dispute and Replies: worked examples
The examples below are not wording to paste automatically into every case. That would defeat the point of PD 47 paragraph 12.1. They show the shape of a proper Point, and the type of principle which may legitimately be addressed in Reply.
1. Expert fees
Example Point of Dispute
Expert evidence — causation. The fees claimed are excessive and disproportionate. The Defendant accepts that expert evidence on breach was reasonably required but disputes the need for the extent of separate causation work undertaken. The issues substantially overlapped and the resulting fees should be reduced accordingly. The items affected are identified below.
That is considerably better than “Expert fees excessive — reduce by 50%”. It identifies the actual objection.
Example Reply
Point of principle: the recoverability of expert evidence is not determined by whether breach and causation overlap to some extent. The question is whether the separate expert work was reasonably required having regard to the issues which remained in dispute. Where causation required specialist consideration distinct from breach, the reasonable cost of that work falls to be assessed on its own merits.
The evidence supporting the expert’s actual role should already be apparent from the report, the instructions, the chronology, the Bill and the supporting papers. The Reply should not become a second witness statement trying to prove every factual allegation.
2. Breach and causation work
This is one of the areas where clinical negligence costs can be reduced too aggressively if the work is treated as one undifferentiated liability exercise.
Example Point of Dispute
Liability work — breach and causation. The receiving party has claimed substantial time for separate consideration of breach and causation. The paying party contends that much of this work overlaps and that the Bill duplicates liability analysis across the two issues. A reduction is sought to the affected items.
Example Reply
Point of principle: breach of duty and causation are separate elements of a clinical negligence claim. The fact that the same factual history may be relevant to both does not, without more, make separate reasonable consideration of each issue duplicative. The receiving party accepts that genuinely duplicated work is not recoverable. The appropriate assessment is whether the work challenged involved repetition, or whether it addressed a distinct liability question.
That is the kind of Reply paragraph 12.1 permits. It does not say “the Defendant is wrong about items 41, 42, 47, 51 and 56”, and it does not repeat the same denial under every item. It identifies the principle the Costs Judge needs before considering the entries.
3. Seniority and delegation
Example Point of Dispute
Grade A involvement. The Bill contains extensive Grade A time in circumstances where substantial parts of the work could reasonably have been delegated to a Grade B or Grade C fee earner. The paying party challenges the seniority of the work identified below and seeks assessment at a lower grade.
That is a proper dispute. The issue is not simply “Grade A too expensive”. It is whether the task reasonably required that level of fee earner.
Example Reply
Point of principle: fee-earner status does not by itself determine recoverability. The relevant question is whether the nature, complexity, responsibility and importance of the particular work reasonably required the level of experience claimed. Equally, the receiving party does not contend that all work undertaken by a Grade A fee earner automatically attracts Grade A recovery. Routine work remains subject to the ordinary principles of reasonable delegation.
That is more useful to the court than “the Grade A rate is reasonable and maintained”. It identifies the actual assessment test, and the individual entries can then be assessed against it.
4. Phase and task allocation
Clinical negligence Bills generate disputes because one piece of work can appear capable of sitting in more than one phase or task. A common mistake is to turn that into an automatic disallowance.
Example Point of Dispute
Phase allocation. The paying party contends that work claimed within the Expert Reports phase properly belongs within Issue/Pleadings and is therefore incorrectly allocated. The relevant entries should be transferred or disallowed as appropriate.
Example Reply
Point of principle: incorrect phase or task allocation does not of itself establish that otherwise recoverable work was unreasonably incurred. The court should distinguish between a classification issue and an objection to the underlying recoverability of the work. Concession: where an item is accepted to have been allocated to the wrong phase, the receiving party accepts the appropriate reallocation without conceding the work itself.
That distinction matters. A coding error is not automatically an entitlement failure. But equally, a receiving party should not spend half a page defending an obvious classification mistake when the sensible answer is “agreed, reallocate it”. That is exactly what paragraph 12.1 means by allowing concessions.
5. MRO and agency charges
Example Point of Dispute
Medical reporting organisation charges. The paying party disputes the amount claimed in excess of the underlying expert’s professional fee. The Bill does not adequately identify the nature or amount of the additional MRO charge, or the service said to justify it. The recoverable amount should be limited accordingly.
Example Reply. A Reply should not simply state that MRO charges are recoverable.
Point of principle: the use of an intermediary does not of itself determine the recoverable amount. The court must consider what charge was actually incurred, what service the additional element represents, and what amount is reasonable and proportionate inter partes. The receiving party does not contend that an unidentified or unsupported additional charge is automatically recoverable merely because it appears on the invoice.
Where the relevant Bill involves a specific agency-fee authority, that authority can then be addressed. But the Reply still needs to answer the principle raised, rather than dropping a case citation into a standard paragraph irrespective of the facts.
A Reply is not a Defence
This is the easiest way to misunderstand Precedent G.
Points of Dispute naturally look like pleadings. They contain allegations. The instinct is therefore to answer each one — denied, denied, not accepted, maintained. PD 47 paragraph 12.1 deliberately prevents that approach.
Replies are not supposed to become another pleading containing a specific denial to every criticism. Their purpose is narrower: to identify a point of principle which genuinely needs resolving, or a concession which narrows the assessment.
That makes the following sort of Reply weak:
“The Defendant’s assertion that the time is excessive is denied. The work was reasonably and proportionately incurred and the time claimed is reasonable. The item is maintained in full.”
It adds almost nothing. The Point says excessive. The Reply says not excessive. The Costs Judge is no better informed.
What works in a Reply
A useful Reply normally does one or more of the following:
- identifies the actual principle raised by the Point;
- corrects a misunderstanding of the costs test;
- distinguishes two costs concepts the paying party has conflated;
- identifies the proper basis upon which the items should be assessed;
- makes a genuine concession;
- narrows the number of items still in dispute;
- directs attention to the principle affecting a group of entries.
For example:
- necessary expert work and excessive expert fees are different objections;
- seniority and hourly rate are different questions;
- incorrect phase allocation is not automatically the same as irrecoverability;
- overlap between breach and causation is not necessarily duplication.
Those are points of principle. They help determine the assessment.
What does not work
Replies are much weaker where they contain:
- “not accepted” repeated under every Point;
- identical paragraphs copied against dozens of items;
- lengthy item-by-item factual denials;
- stock wording that would apply to any Bill;
- general statements that the Bill is reasonable;
- case citations with no explanation of how the principle applies;
- factual assertions which should already be proved by the underlying file;
- argumentative language aimed at the paying party rather than the Costs Judge.
The problem is not merely stylistic. PD 47 paragraph 12.1 expressly prohibits general denials, specific denials and standard-form responses. So a precedent bank containing “telephone calls — standard Reply”, “expert fee — standard Reply” and “Grade A — standard Reply” should be treated with considerable caution.
A precedent can help remind the draftsman of the relevant law. It should not decide the Reply before the Point and the file have been read.
A better way to use a precedent library
There is nothing wrong with maintaining internal legal research or example wording. The danger is using it as a substitute for analysis. A better internal system maintains:
- the relevant CPR and PD provisions;
- leading authorities;
- recognised costs principles;
- common forms of challenge;
- examples of concessions;
- examples showing the difference between principle and denial.
Then, when the Point arrives, ask: what is the actual principle this Point requires the Costs Judge to determine? Only then should the Reply be drafted. That produces something much closer to what PD 47 requires.
Provisional or Oral Assessment
Provisional assessment applies where the costs claimed do not exceed £75,000 (PD 47 para 14.1). Many clinical negligence bills exceed that and proceed to an oral detailed assessment hearing, but lower-value clinical claims do fall within it.
Where it applies, CPR 47.15(5) caps the costs of the provisional assessment at £1,500 together with any VAT and court fees. That cap does not cover the cost of drafting the bill. A party who is dissatisfied with the provisional assessment has 21 days to request an oral hearing (CPR 47.15(7)), and there are cost consequences for doing improving on the outcome.
Offers and the Costs of Assessment
The receiving party is generally entitled to the costs of the detailed assessment proceedings (CPR 47.20), but that is a starting point rather than a guarantee, and Part 36 applies to detailed assessment proceedings with modifications.
The Part 36 consequences themselves are also worth getting right on the substantive claim, because they decide the basis on which the bill is drawn. In particular, late acceptance of a Part 36 offer does not trigger the CPR 36.17 uplift — a distinction that changes what can properly be claimed in the bill.
On a clinical negligence bill the offers chronology is worth building deliberately. A well-pitched offer made early, and beaten at assessment, changes the costs of the assessment itself, and the open offer the paying party is required to make under PD 47 para 8.3 is a useful marker of where they actually are.
The open offer letter: PD 47 paragraph 8.3
There is another part of the Points of Dispute procedure which is easy to overlook. Under PD 47 paragraph 8.3, the paying party must state in an open letter accompanying the Points of Dispute what sum, if any, it offers to pay in settlement of the total costs claimed. The paying party may also make a separate offer under Part 36.
Those are not the same thing. The paragraph 8.3 letter is an open communication accompanying the Points of Dispute, telling the receiving party the paying party’s overall settlement position. That can be extremely useful: a Precedent G may contain dozens of individual reductions, but the open letter tells you what those Points mean commercially.
A £250,000 Bill may attract extensive Points of Dispute against an open offer of £190,000. Another paying party may attack fewer individual entries but offer only £120,000. Those are very different negotiations.
Read it alongside the Points of Dispute rather than treating it as an administrative covering letter, and ask:
- What is the actual difference between the Bill and the open offer?
- Which Points account for most of that difference?
- Are there global reductions hidden behind individual objections?
- Which challenges carry the greatest financial value?
- Which Points can sensibly be conceded?
- Which issues need a point-of-principle Reply?
- Is there a sensible settlement range before substantial further costs are incurred?
The commercial question is not “can we defeat every Point?”. It is what is the realistic recoverable figure, and which disputes materially affect getting there?
Keep the two offers distinct. A receiving party reviewing Points of Dispute should identify whether there is an open 8.3 offer, whether there is also a Part 36 offer, the amount and date of each, and the different consequences attached to them. That distinction becomes increasingly important as the assessment progresses.
Precedent G is a structure, not a script
There is a Points of Dispute template. It is Precedent G.
But Precedent G does not supply the substance of the arguments. For the paying party, PD 47 requires Points to be short, specific and properly grounded. For the receiving party, paragraph 12.1 is more restrictive still: Replies are for points of principle and concessions, not standard denials, item-by-item pleading, or boilerplate copied from another assessment.
A useful costs draftsman should be able to use the same Precedent G structure on two clinical negligence matters and produce materially different content, because the Bill, the Points, the experts, the phases, the issues, the rates and the evidence are different.
That is how it should be. The form is standard. The analysis should not be.
A Practical Checklist
- Diarise the three-month period for commencing under CPR 47.7.
- Diarise the expiry of the 21-day Points of Dispute period, and consider CPR 47.11.
- Check the open offer letter required by PD 47 para 8.3 has been provided.
- Read the bill against the last approved budget before drafting anything.
- Separate incurred from budgeted costs, and be ready to justify the incurred side.
- Evidence the expert spend: who, why, how many disciplines, and what each produced.
- Show the breach and causation split in the time recording, not in argument.
- Keep the Reply to points of principle and concessions (PD 47 para 12.1).
- Check whether the bill falls under or over £75,000 for provisional assessment.
- Build the offers chronology early, and keep it open to inspection.
How DMD Costs Can Help
We prepare and negotiate clinical negligence costs for claimant solicitor firms: bills of costs and Precedent S electronic bills, Replies to Points of Dispute, expert and MRO fee challenges, and negotiation through to settlement or assessment. Every clinical file is subject to senior technical review.
If Points of Dispute have landed and the 21 days are running, send us the file and we will review the papers and confirm a fixed fee before any work begins.