The (further) perils of failing to comply with service requirements

Regular readers will know that the courts often emphasise the need to comply with the Civil Procedure Rules, particularly as they relate to the service of a claim form. Where a litigant fails to take the required steps, the court has powers of retrospective validation and time extension, but they are exercised sparingly.

In Valentine London Ltd v. Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2026] EWHC 790 (Admin), Fordham J. declined to exercise those discretionary powers and, in so doing, made clear that, in a “disciplined arena”, “the rules and compliance with them really matter”. Although the case involved a claim for a statutory review of a planning decision, the general principles engaged are those that arise in a great number of claims that readers will encounter.

The provisions peculiar to this type of claim provided that the claim form must be filed and served within six weeks of the relevant planning decision. The judge noted that, for these purposes, a “claim form” means a sealed claim form; in other words, one that was already filed. In Valentine London Ltd, there were two available destinations for serving the claim form: the Government Legal Department’s postal address on Petty France in London; and a designated e-mail address. Both were specified in the relevant practice direction and both appeared in pre-action correspondence from the Defendant.

Unfortunately for the Claimant, a series of mis-steps meant that he did not serve a sealed claim form at the correct place. The service deadline was a Monday. On the Friday immediately preceding it, he submitted a claim form to the Administrative Court Office and sent a copy (unsealed) to the Defendant’s designated e-mail address; but, alas, it was the wrong type of claim form for the case he wished to bring. The court office pointed that out to him and, after expressing what the judge summarised as “indignation”, the Claimant “wisely decided to refile the papers” as advised. He did so by e-mail at 3.11 p.m. on the Monday. With admirable alacrity, the court office returned a sealed copy at 3.19 p.m., a mere eight minutes later. The court found as fact that the Claimant then proceeded to do nothing for the rest of the day. On the Tuesday, he sent an unsealed copy of the claim form to the Defendant by e-mail. On the Thursday, after a flurry of e-mail correspondence, the Claimant sent a sealed copy by e-mail to the direct e-mail address of a lawyer acting for the Defendant – but not to the designated e-mail address.

The Claimant applied for an order under rule 6.15 making good the steps he had taken or, alternatively, an order under rule 7.6(3) extending time for him to serve the claim form. Rule 6.15(1) permits the court where “it appears to the court that there is a good reason to authorise service by a method or at a place not otherwise permitted” to “make an order permitting service by an alternative method or at an alternative place”. Such an order may retrospectively authorise service “even where a claim would otherwise be timed-out”: Abela v. Baadarani [2013] UKSC 44. Rule 7.6(3) provides that the court may make “an order to extend the time” for service “only if the claimant has taken all reasonable steps to comply with [the step required to effect service] but has been unable to do so”.

On the first part of the application, Fordham J. considered the decision of the Supreme Court in Abela, which held (as he summarised) that the question was “whether, in all the circumstances of the particular case, there is a good reason to make the order sought”, noting that a “critical factor” was whether the defendant had “learned of the existence and content of the claim form”.

The Claimant argued that he had sent the “substantive content” of his claim to the Defendant on the Friday within the unsealed incorrect claim form. He said that, in those circumstances, the Defendant was aware of the claim (and the Claimant confirmed that such a claim had been issued a few days later) and it would cause great prejudice to the Claimant (and none to the Defendant) if the power in rule 6.15 were not exercised, given he was “doing his level best” as a litigant in person. Fordham J. disagreed. There could be no good service of a claim before it had been issued: there “could not be valid service of non-existent proceedings” in the words of Carr L.J. (as she then was) in R. (on the application of Good Law Project Ltd) v. Secretary of State for Health and Social Care [2022] EWCA Civ 355; and the Claimant was “not seeking an alternative method of service” but “a change in the thing which has to be served” in the words of Sir Julian Flaux C. in Ideal Shopping Direct Ltd v. Mastercard Inc. [2022] EWCA Civ 14. Further, the “fact of a default in failing to use the method of service … required by the rules” was “the situation for the exercise of the power” in rule 6.15, and could not be a reason for exercising it, without more. The judge was clear that it had been “inexcusable” (an adjective used about the Claimant’s default five times in the judgment) not to serve the sealed claim form at the correct e-mail address in the required time, even though he knew that is where it should have been sent.

With similar force, the judge dismissed the Claimant’s arguments in favour of authorising service by the e-mail sent on the Thursday. There was no good reason to do so. In considering that question, the judge considered rule 7.6(3), because authorisation of late service would necessarily also require an order extending time. He found that the Claimant had not taken “all reasonable steps” to effect service by the deadline. The Claimant had also failed to take all reasonable steps after the deadline, because (extraordinarily) he had never sent the sealed claim form to the designated postal address or the designated e-mail address. The judge had no sympathy for the Claimant’s “excuse” that he was trying to avoid undermining his primary case that steps already taken had been sufficient.

Fordham J. (with references to Rogers v. Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities [2024] EWCA Civ 1554 and Barton v. Wright Hassall L.L.P. [2018] UKSC 12) noted that service of a claim form is “an area where what is required is clarity and certainty” and “the rules are clear and accessible”. All litigants, not just qualified practitioners, are expected to understand and apply the rules.

William Dean is a barrister at Deka Chambers.