The Short Point
Ward v Rai [2026] EWCA Civ 816 does not relax the rules on drafting Points of Dispute. It changes what follows when they are not complied with — from something a receiving party can treat as close to automatic, into a case-management decision that sits squarely within the Costs Judge’s discretion.
For a claimant firm that is a harder result than the headlines suggest, and it changes how a detailed assessment should be prepared.
What Happened
The underlying claim arose from a road traffic accident in September 2019. Liability was admitted and the claim settled in January 2023 by acceptance of a Part 36 offer of £546,984. Detailed assessment followed.
The contested item was work on documents: 134.1 hours set out across a 24-page schedule, amounting to roughly half the profit costs claimed. The paying party’s Point 23 criticised those entries in general terms and foreshadowed reliance on an annotated schedule of objections.
That schedule — the document actually identifying which items were challenged — was not served until about 4.45pm two working days before a two-day hearing.
The bill was ultimately assessed at £89,032.62. That figure is worth sitting with: the dispute that reached the Court of Appeal was procedural, but the assessment underneath it moved a long way, and half the profit costs had been presented as a single block of document time.
Three Decisions, Two Reversals
Deputy Costs Judge Friston declined to strike out Point 23 and, “very reluctantly”, permitted reliance on the late schedule, adjourning the assessment to a third day with costs sanctions to follow.
Mrs Justice Hill reversed him on first appeal.
The Court of Appeal, in a judgment of Lady Justice Falk handed down on 2 July 2026, allowed the appeal and restored the Costs Judge. The decision was one he was entitled to make “within the generous ambit of his discretion”, and he had not erred in principle.
The court was careful about what that did and did not mean. It accepted the outcome was neither the only permissible one nor one other judges would necessarily have reached. That is a statement about appellate restraint, not about good practice.
What Ward Does Not Decide
It would be easy to read the result as a signal that non-compliant Points of Dispute are now tolerated. The Court of Appeal closed that reading off in terms: parties “should be under no illusion that paragraph 8.2 of PD 47 requires an Ainsworth compliant approach”. Late variations remain at risk of being “disallowed or permitted only on conditions, including as to costs”.
The paying party in Ward won the point and still collected an adjournment and a costs sanction for how it got there. That is not a template worth copying.
What This Means for Claimant Firms
The practical shift is about what a receiving party can plan around. Before Ward it was tempting to treat a vague, non-compliant point of dispute as a problem that would resolve itself — the objection struck out, the schedule excluded, the item recovered. Ward shows that outcome is available to the Costs Judge but is in no sense guaranteed, and that an appellate court will be slow to interfere either way.
So the working assumption has to change:
- Answer a vague point on its merits as well as on its form.
- Expect a late schedule to be allowed in, and be ready to meet it.
- Take the procedural objection, but do not build the hearing strategy on it succeeding.
- Keep the conduct record: it drives the costs consequences even where the point gets in.
The Drafting Lesson Runs Both Ways
Half the profit costs in Ward sat in a single work-on-documents figure. A bill that presents 134.1 hours as one block invites exactly the kind of generalised objection that started this, and then a late schedule to give it substance.
A bill built so that each phase of document work is legible on its face is harder to attack in general terms, and much harder to attack for the first time two days before a hearing. The recurring objections are predictable by claim type — we set them out for housing disrepair and clinical negligence.
How DMD Costs Can Help
Points of Dispute and Replies are one of the things we do most. We draft bills and answer Points of Dispute for claimant solicitor firms, and where a paying party serves something vague we answer it on the merits rather than assuming the form of it will carry the day.
If Points of Dispute have landed, or a bill needs drawing so they are harder to make, send us the file and we will confirm the fixed fee before any work begins.
A Note on Sources
Citation, court, date, the constitution of the court and the quoted wording were checked against independent reports of the judgment before this note was written. Figures are given as reported.