It’s hard to write a pithy article about the transfer of proceedings from the High Court in London to the Central London County Court (CLCC), but given its wide-reaching implications I thought it was worth a try.

A new Pilot Practice Note came into effect on 1 April 2025 and will run until 31 March 2026. The pilot scheme provides for the automatic transfer of numerous types of insolvency applications, which are ordinarily issued in the Rolls Building (via CE-File), to the CLCC for a hearing. This has long been the practice in relation to certain applications, such as an application to extend the term of an administration. For those who have made such an application recently, the procedural snags associated with a transfer between these two courts have been only too evident.

Applications issued in the High Court must be issued electronically by CE-file, whereupon the High Court will issue the application and then send it to the CLCC, which will allocate its own case number and list a hearing. One initial difficulty is that the CLCC operates only paper files, whereas files in the High Court are electronic. There will inevitably be a delay in the relevant documents being printed, physically filed and processed by the CLCC before a hearing date is obtained. In the case of administration extension applications, solicitors are usually required to carry out the ‘heavy lifting’ by downloading the issued application and transfer order from CE-file and sending a hard copy manually to the CLCC for it to allocate a case number and list a hearing. This process can take up to a week from first filing by CE-file. 

From 1 April 2025, 17 types of applications and claims issued in the High Court will be automatically transferred to the CLCC, including (amongst others):

• Bankruptcy petitions where the debt is £500,000 or less
• Private examinations under sections 236 and 366 of the Insolvency Act 1986
• Applications to extend the term of office of an administrator
• Applications to fix the basis or rate of remuneration
• Claims for the restoration of a company to the register

According to an interesting talk from Judge Dight CBE at the Wilberforce Chambers Restructuring and Insolvency conference last week, no additional judges or resources have been allocated to the CLCC to accommodate the hearing of these additional categories of cases. Practitioners should, therefore, expect significant delays in the listing of such applications. Time-critical applications (e.g. an application to extend an administration) should be made as early as practicable. For example, while the Practice Direction on Insolvency Proceedings suggests that “best practice” is to make an application at least 6 weeks prior to the end of administration, insolvency practitioners should adopt a cautious approach and prudently issue early (ideally perhaps at least eight weeks ahead) to ensure a hearing is obtained in good time before the expiry of the current term.