HM Courts and Tribunals Service

3. Mr E complains HMCTS: • contacted him by post when he had asked for email correspondence only • did not provide him with a transcript of the judgement from a court hearing • delayed processing his N244 application forms • did not deal with his Help With Fees application properly • told him he needed to attend a court hearing via video (CVP).

4. Mr E says the actions of HMCTS have worsened his health and long-term disability.

5. As an outcome to his complaint Mr E would like: • acknowledgement and apology • service improvements • financial remedy in recognition of distress and emotional impact • financial remedy in recognition of any financial losses • HMCTS to retake decisions where it did not follow the right process or policies.

6. Mr E had several County Court hearings. In the process of arranging these he sent correspondence and applications to HMCTS.

9. Before we decide if we should conduct a detailed investigation of a complaint, we look at whether there are signs the organisation has got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. If there are indications of mistakes, then we look at whether it has put the associated impacts right.

10. If we consider there are no failings or no impacts to put right, then we will decline to investigate further. That is the case here.

Contacted Mr E by post

11. Mr E says he asked HMCTS to contact him by email only, and complains it mailed him a letter instead. He has told us about how this has impacted his health and worsened his disability.

12. Our Principles of Good Administration say organisations should communicate effectively, using methods appropriate to the individual.

13. HMCTS’s Complaint Handling Guidance says when it gets things wrong, its remedy should aim to put right the impact of what happened. HMCTS should acknowledge the injustice, and account for any factors that might make this worse. It should also act to stop the same problem happening again in the future.

14. When it comes to offering a financial remedy, HMCTS will pay between £50 to £250 for minor administrative failings with limited impact.

15. HMCTS responded to Mr E’s complaint by email on 20 February 2025. It acknowledged it had agreed to only contact Mr E by email, and acknowledged it sent him a letter in the post. The letter was asking him for some information it needed to progress his application for help with court fees. It agreed with Mr E this should not have happened.

16. To put things right, HMCTS apologised to Mr E for the difficulty and stress its actions caused him. HMCTS reminded staff about the importance of checking a user’s correspondence preferences and also offered him £100 financial remedy.

17. We acknowledge the stress HMCTS’s actions caused Mr E. We agree this emotional impact would not have happened if HMCTS followed his request to only send him emails.

18. The remedy HMCTS offered Mr E acknowledged the impact he has told us about. HMCTS’s financial remedy was in line with payments for similar failings and associated impacts. It also made service improvements to stop the same thing happening again.

19. Furthermore, HMCTS did send the request for information by email after Mr E raised his concerns. HMCTS also extended the deadline to reflect this error. Therefore, there is no indication Mr E missed out on any opportunity to provide the information HMCTS needed.

20. With this in mind, HMCTS acted in line with its guidance when resolving Mr E’s complaint and there is nothing further we can recommend to put things right.

Court hearing transcript

21. Mr E complains HMCTS did not provide him with full transcripts of the county court judgement. Instead, it advised him if he wanted the transcript then he would have to fund it himself.

22. We can consider the actions of HMCTS when a judge asks its staff to do something. In those instances, we look at whether HMCTS followed the instructions the judge made. Our powers do not extend to considering whether the judge made the right decision or not.

23. We would expect HMCTS staff to act in line with our Principles of Good Administration. These say organisations should ‘act according to their statutory powers and duties and any other rules governing the service they provide.’

24. HMCTS’s complaint response explained the judge made the following order ‘I order that a transcript of my judgment be obtained at public expense. I am not satisfied, however, that it is necessary, in the interests of justice, for a transcript of the whole proceedings to be obtained at public expense. That part of the application is therefore refused.'

25. HMCTS said in line with the judge’s direction, the partial transcript it sent to Mr E reflects only the approved judgment. It said the transcript of the judgement was prepared by a transcription service using the court recording. This transcript was then reviewed and authorised by the judge.

26. In this instance, we consider HMCTS followed the judge’s direction accurately. If Mr E is unhappy with the judge’s decision to only make a partial transcript, then that is something we are unable to comment on or consider due to limitations on our own powers.

Time to process N244 forms

27. Throughout May 2025, Mr E emailed several N244 forms to HMCTS asking it to vary the court proceedings he was part of. An N244 form is used to ask a court to make changes to a case that is underway or after a judgement has been reached.

28. Mr E contacted HMCTS to check it had received these forms. On 11 June, HMCTS explained it had not received all the N244 applications he had mentioned.  On 13 June Mr E emailed HMCTS to say it responded to some applications twice but not responded to others at all.

29. Our Principles of Good Administration say organisations should act on information promptly.

30.  Mr E submitted a formal complaint about this. In its complaint response dated 16 July 2025, HMCTS explained Mr E submitted nine separate N244 applications regarding the same case. It said this caused a lot of confusion.

31. It added the time difference between the foreign country where Mr E lives and the UK caused some confusion too. The example it provided was the application he sent on 13 May arrived with HMCTS on 12 May due to the time difference. It said the differences in the quoted date on the forms and the date they arrived led to some delays.

32. HMCTS apologised for the confusion this caused Mr E. It also explained how the problem arose and acknowledged the frustration it caused him. However, there was no delay to his court case.

33. It appears HMCTS only acted once Mr E chased up the progress of his N244 applications. This falls short of the standard we expect. Nonetheless, we recognise the challenges HMCTS faced due to the number of applications and the mismatched dates. We have taken this into consideration when deciding if it has done enough to put right what happened.

34. HMCTS Complaint Handling Guidance gives a specific example of when an apology is appropriate and no financial payment is required. The example it gives is, ‘Correspondence overlooked and chased by the customer - resulting in a delay of less than a month and no detrimental impact or delay to the case.’

35. Having considered Mr E’s complaint and HMCTS’s response, we consider its apology puts things right. This is because HMCTS acted on Mr E’s N244s when he chased it up. Importantly, the delay had no impact on his court case.

36. We are pleased to see HMCTS has put right what went wrong, in line with its complaint handling guidance. We acknowledge the stress and frustration this caused Mr E and the time he spent having to chase up this matter.

Help With Fees (HWF) application

37. Mr E applied for help funding court fees by submitting an EX160 form on 4 December 2025. Mr E complains HMCTS did not provide the financial help immediately, which meant his application was delayed. He says this made it impossible to proceed with his court case as planned on 6 January 2026.

38. Mr E says that due to HMCTS’s delay in awarding help with court fees, he has experienced financial hardship and ongoing distress. He also argues that, as a disabled person, he was entitled to reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010, and HMCTS failed to make these adjustments.

39. Mr E says HMCTS should have provided financial help in line with the Equality Act 2010, as well as its own HWF guide.

40. Section 6.3 of the HWF guide gives example criteria of when HMCTS should treat an application as an emergency. It says, ‘Emergency applications may include (this is not an exhaustive list) the following: • request to suspend an eviction the same day • request to extend a time limit which will expire the next day • an application with injunctive provision • any application involving domestic violence • any matter concerning the safety of a child or vulnerable adult • some applications involving emergency medical treatment or the withdrawal of artificial nutrition or hydration in the Court of Protection • cases made under the ‘out of hours’ provisions at the Royal Courts of Justice.’

41. Section 6.4  says in all emergency cases, the applicant should complete an EX160 form if possible. HMCTS can then process the application immediately to decide whether they are eligible for help.

42. The EX160 form also highlighted the need for accuracy and explained HMCTS can verify financial information with other government departments. It advised that applicants receiving certain benefits would likely qualify for fee help, subject to confirmation from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)

43. HMCTS emailed Mr E on 15 December 2025. It told him it could not immediately award the help he wanted as DWP was checking his eligibility. In its responses to his complaint dated 8 and 13 January 2026, HMCTS explained his applications had been selected for random checks. It said this was why it had not awarded the HWF yet.

44. Mr E challenged HMCTS’s explanation that DWP policy delayed his application. He submitted a Freedom of Information request to HMCTS and it sent him a response stating, “There is no DWP policy instructing HMCTS to suspend or reject HWF applications.”

45. Mr E argues his disability entitles him to emergency fee assistance. Based on the evidence available, there is no indication he met the criteria under Section 6.3 of the HWF guide. The examples provided for emergency applications do not appear to apply to his case.

46. Additionally, there is no clear evidence to support his claim that HMCTS’s response to his EX160 form constituted a failure to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010. The HWF guide indicates that verification checks with DWP are a routine part of the process, and these would apply to all applicants, regardless of disability.

47. We recognise Mr E feels DWP policy was responsible for delaying the HWF payment. However, HMCTS’s response explained DWP’s policy determined the types of benefits that would be checked – not whether Mr E’s application was granted or not.

48. Therefore, the additional checks HMCTS performed were in line with the information available on the form and set out in the HWF guide.

49. We recognise why Mr E is so unhappy he had to wait for HMCTS to fulfil his HWF application. Given the guidance available and the explanations of HMCTS, we consider nothing went wrong when it checked the information he provided.

Attend a court hearing via video (CVP)

50. Mr E complains HMCTS failed to meet procedural requirements for allowing a remote hearing from outside the jurisdiction. He said HMCTS should have postponed the hearing because permissions were not properly obtained.

51. Mr E says HMCTS gave him three choices for attending his court hearing remotely. However, he says the court order dated 23 February 2025 required him to get permission from a government official in the country where he lives to attend a remote hearing.

52. Mr E says the official provided their response on 28 February 2025, but it only reached the court on 30 April 2025. This was after the hearing had already taken place. Mr E says the government official’s response stated it was the responsibility of the court (not Mr E) to seek permission to allow the remote hearing from outside the jurisdiction.

53. Because of the problems with CVP, Mr E asked the judge to vacate the hearing scheduled for 28 April 2025. The judge refused and proceeded with the hearing, ordering Mr E to pay costs. Mr E feels the remote hearing held on 28 April 2025 was unlawful due to the venue and attendance method.

54. Mr E has complained to the Judicial Investigation Office about the judge’s decision, but would also like HMCTS to explain why the hearing was allowed to proceed.

55. HMCTS’s website explains in a county court, ‘The judge also decides on all matters of procedure which may arise during a hearing.’

56. In response to Mr E’s complaint HMCTS explained the method in which the hearing is conducted is a judicial decision and administrative staff must follow these decision. It told him HMCTS provided three options of how he could attend the hearing - CVP Audio, Microsoft Teams or in person.

57. Mr E does not complain HMCTS incorrectly followed the judge’s instructions. Instead, he is saying the instructions from the judge were unfair. We cannot consider the method of hearing as it was for a judge to decide.

58. As we can only consider whether HMCTS followed the judge’s instructions, there is no indication it got things wrong when it invited Mr E to attend the hearing via the methods specified by the judge.

59. We understand Mr E how stressful Mr E has found his interactions with HMCTS. We recognise his unhappiness with how it has organised his court hearings and why this means so much to him. Although we will be taking no further action on the issues he has brought to us, we hope our consideration of what happened can put these issues to rest.

1. We have carefully considered Mr E’s complaint about HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS). Having looked at what happened, we consider nothing went wrong with several of the issues he brought to us. Where HMCTS did make a mistake, it has acted in line with its guidance to put things right.

2. We understand why Mr E is so frustrated with HMCTS’s actions and recognise the emotional impact these events have caused him.