Urgent business and Interim Applications

Urgent hearings before a Chancery High Court Judge

Any urgent applications (whether on notice or without notice) which can or should only be dealt with by a High Court Judge must be certified as urgent business (see paragraph 15.12(a) of the Chancery Guide (PDF)).

Arrangements for listing the application should be made with the Chancery Judges’ Listing Office. If the overall time required to deal with the urgent application is less than 2 hours (including pre-reading, oral argument, the delivery of judgment, costs and/or consequential matters (including any application for permission to appeal)) then the application should be listed in the Judges’ Applications List. Further detail on the Judges’ Applications List can be found at paragraphs 15.16 to 15.27 of The Chancery Guide.

All urgent applications other than those which can or should only be dealt with by a High Court Judge or which can be listed in the Judges’ Applications List should be made to a Master. See further guidance at paragraph 15.12 of the Chancery Guide.

Out of hours business

An application should not be made out of hours unless it is essential. An explanation will be required as to why it was not made or could not be made during normal court hours. It should be noted that normal sitting hours for court hearings before judges are 10:30 am to 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm to 4:30 pm. Applications made during legal vacations must also be certified as being vacation business.

There is always a Duty Chancery Judge available to hear urgent out of hours applications that are High Court Chancery business. A summary of the procedure is found at paragraph 15.39 of the Chancery Guide.

Out of hours business in the B&PCs District Registries

The B&PC District Registries in Leeds and Manchester each have Urgent Applications lists on Friday which are heard by a Section 9 Judge or the Vice-Chancellor, when sitting. They operate in a similar way to the Judges’ Applications List in the ChD B&PCs London. However, they may be used for both urgent and non urgent applications which need to be heard by a Section 9 Judge rather than a District Judge, where the time estimate is 2 hours or less (including pre-reading, judgment and costs). For local guidance on listing applications in these Urgent Applications lists please follow the links in Appendix C of the Chancery Guide.