HM Courts and Tribunals Service

3. Mr X raises concerns regarding multiple delays and errors by HMCTS, during the ongoing legal proceedings. Specifically, Mr X complains:

• HMCTS overlooked the defendant’s resubmitted signed appeal, which was sent on 31 May 2021, and an extension was therefore granted until 23 October 2021, for the defendant to file their appeal • The order for the hearing dated 8 July 2022 was not typed until 1 August 2022 • HMCTS misplaced the case file, resulting in a five-month delay in the typing of a court order (dated 16 May 2023). This in turn caused a further one-month delay, as a revised order was required to amend the expired compliance deadlines (issued on 9 November 2023) • HMCTS did not refer the questioning file in a timely manner, following the defendant’s non-compliance with the questioning hearing held in January 2023. (during which the defendant refused to complete the deposition). This was due to HMCTS misinterpreting the court order (dated 26 January 2023) and also referring a different query, which resulted in a two-year delay in submitting the matter to the circuit judge on 28 April 2025 • Due to the lack of timely responses to Mr X’s correspondence, HMCTS took four months to refer the expert report he submitted on 20 October 2024, to a judge • HMCTS issued a second notice of hearing on 28 June 2024 regarding the defendant’s second appeal, which caused confusion. The appeal hearing (scheduled for 12 July 2024) was adjourned until 17 September 2024, to allow the defendant time to secure legal representation, resulting in further delays • HMCTS failed to respond promptly to several of Mr X’s complaints • HMCTS did not transfer the defendant’s third appeal to the preferred court after previously assuring that it would.

4. Mr X says that, as a result of the multiple delays and errors, this caused unnecessary delays in instructing a gas engineer and further delayed the process of being able to enforce an injunction order granted in 2021 to remove the defendant’s boiler flue from trespassing on his family’s property. He adds that legal proceedings remain ongoing, and noxious waste gases continue to be discharged onto his parent’s property, causing a nuisance, and interfering with the use of their property.

5. By bringing his complaint to us, Mr X is seeking £1,200 financial remedy and for HMCTS to prioritise the proceedings at the preferred court, and to deal with any future correspondence promptly.

6. On 1 November 2019, Mr X started legal proceedings against a third party. Following delays in arranging court dates (largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic) a hearing was arranged for 23 April 2021. At the hearing, the court ordered that the defendant take action in Mr X’s favour (for simplicity, we will refer to this as the Substantive Order). On the same day, the court ordered the defendant to pay Mr X’s costs (we will refer to this as the Costs Order).

7. On 14 May 2021, the defendant submitted an appeal. However, although they had submitted the relevant appeal forms, they had not signed them. Because of this, on 26 May 2021, HMCTS returned the forms to the defendant and asked for them to be resubmitted.

8. The defendant returned the forms on 31 May 2021 but, in error, HMCTS failed to record this. Over the next few months, Mr X contacted HMCTS several times for an update on the case. HMCTS initially told Mr X that the defendant had not yet returned the forms. However, following contact from the defendant, HMCTS told Mr X in September 2021, it had made an error, and that it had received the forms after all.

9. Also in September 2021, HMCTS again asked the defendant to resubmit the appeal forms. The defendant did so, and the matter was passed to a judge to consider.

10. On 30 November 2021, the judge refused the appeal but said the defendant could apply for an oral hearing if they wished to (by law, if permission to appeal is refused based solely on paper, the appellant has the right to ask for an oral hearing to consider their request for permission to appeal).

11. The defendant submitted their request for an oral hearing in December 2021. However, HMCTS delayed in putting the request before a judge to consider, and this did not happen until February 2022. A hearing was arranged for 8 July 2022 at which the judge rejected the appeal. HMCTS issued the judgement on 1 August 2022.

12. In November 2022, Mr X began enforcement proceedings against the defendant as they had not yet complied with the Substantive Order of 23 April 2021. At around the same time (following contact from Mr X), HMCTS ordered the defendant to attend court for questioning about their financial position (this is because they had not yet complied with the Costs Order issued in April 2021). However, the defendant failed to answer the questions and complete the deposition.

13. In January 2023, Mr X contacted the court in relation to the Costs Order. He asked what action HMCTS was taking, in light of the defendant’s failure to answer the questions or complete the deposition. HMCTS did not respond.

14. Also in January 2023, a court ordered Mr X to submit an expert report in relation to the Substantive Order (this was in relation to action the court had ordered the defendant to take in April 2021).

15. In February 2023, Mr X emailed HMCTS again about the financial questioning. HMCTS responded and said (in error) that the court order of January 2023 related to this issue and that a further hearing had been planned.

16. In May 2023, a judge agreed that Mr X could pursue enforcement of the Substantive Order. The order contained details of action the defendant needed to take within a set timescale. However, although the judge produced a draft, HMCTS delayed in preparing and sending the formal typed copy of the order (Mr X would have been unable to take enforcement action without this).

17. In May 2023, Mr X contacted HMCTS about the whereabouts of the typed order. At around the same time, he also contacted HMCTS for an update on the financial questioning. Mr X received no response to either matter, so he chased both in June 2023.

18. HMCTS responded and said it usually takes 12 to 17 weeks for it to prepare a typed order, and that Mr X should wait until that time had lapsed. HMCTS did not respond to his query about the financial questioning.

19. In August 2023, and again in September 2023, Mr X contacted HMCTS about the typed order (which, according to the timescales HMCTS had given him, was now late). HMCTS said it would chase this up internally. Mr X did not hear anything, so he contacted HMCTS again in October 2023. HMCTS told him that it would chase the matter again.

20. In October 2023, Mr X contacted HMCTS about the delay in sending the typed order. He asked HMCTS to action this as a matter of urgency. Although HMCTS did not respond immediately to Mr X’s complaint, the evidence shows that, shortly afterwards, HMCTS was able to prepare and send the typed order.

21. On 14 October 2023, Mr X contacted HMCTS again. He said that, although he had now received the typed order, it was unenforceable. This was because the specific timescales set out in the order had now passed. Mr X said HMCTS should have noticed this when preparing the order, and referred it back to the judge for advice (rather than sending it out as it was). He said he had contacted the court responsible for sending the order and asked it to refer the matter to a judge now, but he had received no reply. Mr X said a further hearing of his case had been listed for 17 January 2024, so the matter was urgent.

22. On 9 November 2023, HMCTS issued a revised order on the advice of a judge. At the hearing on 17 January 2024, a judge made a further order which would help Mr X carry out enforcement of the original Substantive Order (the order would allow the police to enter the defendant’s property). However, in February 2024, the defendant submitted another appeal about that Substantive Order.

23. In March 2024, the police told Mr X it was seeking clarification from the court about the permission to enter the defendant’s property. The police said it would be taking no further action until the matter was clarified. Mr X contacted HMCTS and asked it to deal promptly with the police’s enquiry.

24. In April 2024, Mr X made a second complaint to HMCTS. He said he was still waiting for a response to his request for HMCTS to take urgent action on the police request. In the same month, HMCTS responded to both complaints. It apologised for not responding to some of Mr X’s requests for updates and said this was due to the volume of work it was dealing with. It said the same volumes of work had also led to delays in its ability to prepare the typed order, although it added that it had also misplaced the file for a short time (which had also contributed to the delay). HMCTS apologised and said it would address this with the relevant staff. HMCTS said it had no record of the request from the police).

25. Also in April 2024, a court again refused the defendant’s request to appeal the original Substantive Order. The following month, the defendant again requested an oral appeal hearing.

26. On 4 June 2024, HMCTS notified all parties that a hearing had been arranged for 23 October 2024, to consider the defendant’s request for permission appeal. HMCTS said the hearing had been arranged for a specified court (Court A).

27. On the same day (and in error) HMCTS issued a second notification of hearing for the same matter. However, this time it said it was for a different court (Court B) and on a different day (12 July 2024).

28. Two days later, Mr X contacted HMCTS for an update on the financial questioning of the defendant (related to the Costs Order). HMCTS responded the following day and said (incorrectly) that this was the matter due to be considered at the hearing on 12 July. HMCTS said it could not take any further action until the judge had made a ruling on this.

29. On 9 July 2024 (and again on 11 July 2024) HMCTS contacted both parties to confirm that the hearing would be going ahead as planned on 12 July at Court B. However, on the day of the hearing, the judge adjourned the matter. The judge noted that the defendant had been unable to obtain legal representation due to the confusion over court dates. The judge adjourned the matter until 17 September 2024 and formerly vacated (cancelled) the hearing on 23 October (at Court A).

30. At the new hearing, the judge refused the defendant’s permission to appeal. However, the following month, the defendant made a third appeal application.

31. Also in October 2024, Mr X submitted the expert report, which the court had requested from him at an earlier hearing. However, HMCTS did not immediately pass this to the judge. Over the next few months, Mr X contacted HMCTS several times in relation to this, without response.

32. In December 2024, a judge refused the defendant’s third appeal application. They said the matter had already been dealt with, so no further action was necessary. In the same month, Mr X contacted HMCTS and asked for an update on the financial questioning interview. HMCTS did not respond.

33. On 20 December 2024, Mr X called HMCTS in connection with the expert report. HMCTS said that, although it had received the report, it had not yet passed it to the judge. That was the reason no hearing was currently listed.

34. The following day, Mr X again complained to HMCTS. He said he could not understand why it was taking so long to pass his expert report to a judge, when HMCTS had acted swiftly on referring the defendant’s appeal application (even though both documents had been submitted at roughly the same time). He asked HMCTS to refer the expert report to a judge as a matter of urgency.

35. On 15 January 2025, Mr X again complained to HMCTS. He referred to HMCTS’ delay in dealing with the defendant’s original appeal (in May 2021) and said this had led to a delay in dealing with the case overall. He urged HMCTS to deal swiftly with any further appeals the defendant may make in future. Mr X brought HMCTS’ attention to what he saw was a further delay, namely a delay in issuing the written judgement following the hearing in July 2022.

36. HMCTS responded and acknowledged it had made an error when dealing with the appeal in 2021. It also apologised for the confusion it had caused by notifying two hearings for the same matter in June 2024. It told Mr X how he could escalate his complaint.

37. On the same day, Mr X contacted HMCTS again and asked it to refer the financial questioning matter to a judge as a matter of urgency. He received no response so chased the matter a week later.

38. On 3 February 2025 Mr X asked for his concerns to be escalated. He said the matter of the defendant’s appeal should have been resolved on 12 July 2024 but instead, due to an admin error, this had dragged on for another two months (until 17 September). He noted that, despite this delay, the matter had still been resolved in a far shorter period than it had taken, to resolve the initial appeal in May 2021. Mr X said this suggested that Court B acted more efficiently than Court A and asked for all further matters to be dealt with by, and at Court B. Mr X again raised his concerns about HMCTS’ failure to action the financial questioning matter and again asked this to be referred to a judge as a matter of urgency.

39. On 24 February 2025, HMCTS responded to Mr X’s concerns about the delay in referring the expert report to a judge. It said that, unfortunately, the report had been overlooked but had now referred it to a judge (on 14 February). HMCTS apologised or the delay and explained how Mr X could escalate his concerns.

40. Mr X responded on 9 March 2025 and said he was not happy with the responses he had received so far, as they provided no reassurance the errors would not be repeated. He again asked for the issue of the outstanding financial questioning to be put before a judge.

41. On 28 March 2025, a judge issued a further order allowing entry to the defendant’s property to enforce the order.

42. On 16 April 2025, HMCTS responded to Mr X’s concerns about the financial questioning. It said the form relating to this issue (called an N39) had been misplaced which is why there had been a delay in referring the matter to a judge. HMCTS said it would do so, as a matter of urgency.

43. On 23 April 2023, the defendant submitted an appeal against the judge’s further order allowing entry to the property. This was received at Court A. A few days later, HMCTS referred the financial questioning matter to a judge.

44. In May 2025, Mr X made a further complaint to HMCTS. He said he was still waiting to hear the outcome of his substantive case. He also complained that HMCTS had ignored his request for all appeals to be dealt with at Court B, rather than Court A.

45. HMCTS responded in the same month. It again acknowledged the errors outlined in its complaint response of January 2025 (about the errors it had made in 2021 and about the confusion caused by arranging two hearings in June 2024). HMCTS again apologised and offered Mr X £100 in respect of these errors.

46. A few days later (on 23 May 2025), HMCTS responded to Mr X’s concerns about the delay in referring the expert report to a judge. It said it had now done this and, as this was the outcome Mr X had requested, was satisfied the matter was now dealt with. HMCTS said it was still awaiting the outcome of the judge’s consideration of the expert report.

47. On the same day, HMCTS responded to Mr X’s concerns about the outstanding financial questions. It said it had now referred the matter to a judge (on 29 April) and was waiting for a response.

48. On 27 July 2025, Mr X complained to HMCTS again and listed all the issues he had experienced from May 2021 (and which had been documented in his previous complaints/contacts). HMCTS responded on 8 August 2025 and again acknowledged the mistakes it had. In particular, it accepted there had been a delay in referring the financial questioning issue to a judge. It offered Mr X £300 as a remedy to this (and records show that Mr X accepted it on 14 August 2025).

HMCTS overlooked the defendant’s resubmitted signed appeal which was sent on 31 May 2021, and an extension was therefore granted until 23 October 2021, for the defendant to file their appeal.

51. The law, specifically the Parliamentary Commission Act 1967 (the 1967 Act) sets out restrictions on what we can and cannot investigate, in relation to the complaints we receive. The 1967 Act makes clear that, we cannot normally consider a complaint unless it has been made, in writing, to an MP within 12 months of the complainant becoming aware of the matter they wish to complain about.

52. The evidence shows that Mr X became aware as early as September 2021, that HMCTS had made a mistake (by failing to properly record that the defendant had resubmitted their signed appeal, However, he did not formally raise this as a concern to HMCTS until April 2024 (over three years later). Then, when HMCTS failed to respond to this aspect of his complaint directly, he did not raise his concerns again for a further nine months (January 2025).

53. For this issue to fall within the statutory timescales, Mr X was required to submit his complaint to his MP in writing, by September 2022. However, the evidence indicates that the complaint was submitted on 19 January 2025, which is approximately two years and four months outside the required time period. (Even if HMCTS had provided a response in April 2024, this would still be out of time, for our purposes).

54. Mr X gave us his reasons for not bringing his concerns to us sooner. Mr X explained that he and his family wanted to wait until the conclusion of the legal proceedings before escalating their complaints, to avoid any impact on the legal proceedings. Mr X stated that, ‘due to the persistent and currently ongoing maladministration from the county court staff, these legal proceedings are still ongoing’. Mr X added that he was now intending to escalate his concerns to the PHSO ‘as a last resort’.

55. We acknowledge why Mr X chose to wait, however, there was no requirement to do so, as the complaints process is separate from those proceedings. As Mr X was seeking for HMCTS to place his case on a sound procedural footing and to prioritise proceedings, he did not pursue his complaints as promptly as he could have done. Had the complaints been pursued sooner, the matters raised may have been resolved sooner.

56. As we have seen no compelling reason to set the time limit to one side, we are unable to consider this issue further.

The order for the hearing dated 8 July 2022 was not typed until 1 August 2022.

57. Mr X became aware in August 2022, that the order had been typed and processed. However, this issue was not formally raised with HMCTS until 15 January 2025. For this issue to fall within the statutory timescales, Mr X was required to submit this in writing to his MP by August 2023. However, the evidence indicates that the complaint was submitted on 19 January 2025, approximately one year and five months outside the required time period.

58. For the same reasons set out under complaint point one, we are unable to consider this issue further.

HMCTS misplaced the case file, resulting in a five-month delay in the typing of a court order (dated 16 May 2023). This in turn caused a further one-month delay, as a revised order was required, to amend the expired compliance deadlines (issued on 9 November 2023).

59. We note that Mr X confirmed he became aware on 18 August 2023, that the file had been misplaced, following his telephone call to the contact centre. Mr X therefore had reason to complain at that time and needed to submit this in writing to his MP, by August 2024.

The evidence indicates that the complaint was submitted on 15 January 2025, approximately five months outside the required time period.

60. For the same reasons set out under complaint point one, we are unable to consider this issue further.

HMCTS did not refer the questioning file to a circuit judge in a timely manner, following the defendant’s non-compliance with the questioning hearing held on 12 January 2023 (during which the defendant refused to complete the deposition). This was due to HMCTS misinterpreting the court order (dated 26 January 2023). He also complains that a different query was referred, which Mr X says resulted in the two-year delay in submitting the matter to a circuit judge, in April 2025.

61. In relation to this issue, Mr X’s date of knowledge was 27 February 2023, being the date on which he was informed of the reason his file had not been referred to the circuit judge. However, this issue was not formally raised with HMCTS until 21 January 2025, under the fourth complaint.

62. Mr X was required to submit this in writing to his MP by 27 February 2024, for this issue to fall within the statutory timescales. The evidence indicates that the complaint was submitted on 19 January 2025. Even if Mr X had raised it with HMCTS sooner and received a final response in January 2025, this is still 11 months out of time, for our purposes.

63. For the same reasons set out under complaint point one, we are unable to consider this issue further.

64. We do note that, for this complaint point, HMCTS awarded £300 for the delay in referring the file to a circuit judge.

Due to the lack of timely responses to Mr X’s correspondence, HMCTS took four months to refer the expert report he submitted on 20 October 2024, to a judge.

65. HMCTS has acknowledged that it delayed in putting the report before a judge and explained the reasons for this (the report had been overlooked). For that reason, we have looked only at whether HMCTS has done enough to put matters right for Mr X.

66. Under our Principles for Remedy – being customer focussed, we expect organisations to consider the wishes and needs of the person making the complaint when deciding an appropriate remedy. The evidence we have seen shows that, when Mr X complained to HMCTS about this matter (In December 2024), he told it that the outcome he was looking for was for the report to be put before a judge. As HMCTS explained when it responded to him in February, it had since passed the matter to a judge (in accordance with his expressed wishes). Given that it heard no more from Mr X at that time (despite letting him know he could escalate his concerns), it was satisfied it had put matters right for him in the manner he had wanted. As this was in line with our Principles we cannot say this was unreasonable.

67. In our view, HMCTS addressed the issue and, as there was no indication from Mr X that he was unhappy with the action it had taken to resolve his complaint, had no reason to take further action. We consider this to be a reasonable approach to handling the complaint, and we would not have expected HMCTS to have done more.

HMCTS issued a second notice of hearing in June 2024 regarding the defendant’s second appeal, which caused confusion. The appeal hearing originally scheduled for July 2024 was adjourned until September 2024, to allow the defendant time to secure legal representation, resulting in further delays.

68. The evidence shows that HMCTS mistakenly arranged two hearing for the same issue, one for 12 July 2024 and one for 23 October 2024. We have therefore looked at the impact of this.

69. Although we cannot take a firm view on which of these dates should have been the correct one, the evidence suggests the hearing was originally listed for the October date. Had HMCTS noticed this (and therefore not listed the July hearing), it seems likely the hearing would have gone ahead on that date. Given that, because of what happened, the case was eventually heard in September 2024 (a month earlier than originally scheduled), Mr X potentially benefitted from this error (in terms of the speed of the process). Having said this, we recognise that HMCTS’ error caused understandable confusion.

70. The evidence indicates that, HMCTS apologised for the error, acknowledged it, and clearly explained the reason for its mistake. It also recognised the confusion caused. Under our UK Central Government Complaint Standards, we expect organisations to explain why things went wrong and identify suitable ways to put things right for service users. They should also give meaningful and sincere apologies and explanations that openly reflect the impact on the service users concerned. We are satisfied that HMCTS met our expectations in this instance.

HMCTS failed to respond promptly to several of Mr X’s complaints

71. It is important that we look at this issue in the context of all the contact and correspondence Mr X had with HMCTS over the period covered by the report. The evidence shows these contacts were a mixture of requests for information and formal complaints. We can see that some of the later complaints referred to issues already addressed by HMCTS during earlier contacts (such as the complaint about the expert report) whilst others raised concerns about events which had occurred a significant period earlier (such as the January 2025 complaint about the delay in May 2021 – almost four years earlier). This no doubt makes the situation confusing for HMCTS (especially as, on occasion, Mr X did not take prompt action to escalate some of his concerns when invited to do so).

72. Having said this, we cannot say HMCTS was entirely blameless in this matter. It has acknowledged, both to Mr X and to us, that, on occasion, it failed to respond to some of Mr X’s contacts as quickly, or as fully as it should have done. Whilst this was partly due to administrative backlogs (we have seen evidence that HMCTS staff were dealing with significant volumes of work during this period), this does not fully mitigate HMCTS’ failings in this area.

73. We are pleased that HMCTS acknowledged its weaknesses in this area. We have seen evidence that, on several occasions, it apologised to Mr X for the delays in handling and responding to his correspondence. It also explained the steps it would be taking to minimise the risk of such delays occurring again (it said it was engaging staff in extensive re-training). In the circumstances, and given that HMCTS eventually responded fully to all the concerns Mr X had raised (albeit not as promptly as he may have liked), we are satisfied it has taken reasonable steps to put matters right for him.

HMCTS did not transfer the defendant’s third appeal (23 April 2025) to Mr X’s preferred court [Court B] after previously assuring that it would.

74. The evidence shows that Mr X asked HMCTS to ensure all future matters were dealt with at a specific court. However, he says this did not happen.

75. We should make clear this is something HMCTS could not have guaranteed. Whilst HMCTS may recognise a participant’s preference, the location of a hearing is determined by several factors, not least a judge’s order and jurisdiction. For that reason, we cannot say HMCTS could, or should, have agreed to this request.

76. In any event, the evidence shows that the next stage in this case (the defendant’s third appeal) was transferred to Mr X’s preferred court so we cannot say he was disadvantaged by this.

1. We have carefully considered Mr X’s complaint about HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) We were sorry to learn of the events which led to Mr X’s complaint, which continue to be undoubtedly stressful for both him and his family.

2. Although we have seen evidence that delays occurred, we have decided that HMCTS has already done enough to put this right. We will explain the reasons in more detail, below.