ScaleFees

Civil Procedure Act, 2005
Current Scale of Fees: Local Court

These are the fees to be paid to the Registrar of the Local Court pursuant to part 2 rule 2
from 1st July, 2008

FILING FEES:

1. Filing a Statement of Claim or Notice of Cross Claim :-
. . a. Where the amount of the claim is $0.01 to $10,000.00 ............. $77 ($154 - for a Corporation) - Small Claims Division
. .. b. Where the amount of the claim is $10,000.01 to $60,000.00 .... $189 ($378 - Corporation) - General Division

1.Filing a Notice of Motion (general purpose Form 20 only)..............$66 ($132.00 - Corporation)**
(This rule is an ambiguous mess. See below)

2. Filing a certificate or certified copy of conviction or order..............$72 ($144 - Corporation)

3. Filing an application to re-hear an Arbitrated action.......................$328 ($656.00 - Corporation)

4. Filing an application for a Certified Copy of Judgment...................$48

5. Filing an application for a Certified Copy of a Writ of Execution....$18

6. Filing a subpoena ........................................................................$64 ($128 - Corporation)

7. Abolished
8. Abolished
9. Abolished

SERVICE & EXECUTION FEES:

10.Service of Statement of Claim by the court by post (each person)...$33

11.Service of a document by the Sheriff's Officer (each address).........$52 ***
Note: This fee includes GST of $4.73.

12.Execution of a Warrant to Apprehend a Judgment Debtor .............$64
(each attempt at each address)

13.Execution of a Writ of Execution or Delivery by Sheriff's Officer .....$64
(each address)

14.Levy on execution of a Writ of Execution by the Sheriff's Officer .....3%
of amount collected (added to the debt by the sheriff at the tiem of execution)

15. Expenses incurred in executing a writ or summons ................. the reasonable
costs incurred (usually $50)

16.Sheriff's fee for preparing for sale of land under a Writ of Exectution..$653
(only if the sale does not proceed)

TRANSCRIPT FEES:

17.Making a copy of any document, for each page.................................$10
(for up to 20 pages then $5 for each additional 10 pages or part thereof.)

18.Supply of duplicate tape recording of sound-recorded evidence, .......$40
per cassette

19.For each copy of the transcript of any proceedings:
(a) for each page ...................................................................................$8.90
where the mattter being transcribed is under 3 months old (minumum fee $73)
(b) for each page ...................................................................................$10.20
where the matter being transcribed is 3 months or older (minimum fee $89)

click here to see the previous scale of fees

*TIP: some Notices of Cross Claim (e.g. a claim for relief under the Contracts Review Act or a Third Party joinder for a claim for indemnity relating to the plaintiff's claim against the defendant) do not require that an amount of money be claimed. The practice has been for the filing fee to be calculated according to the amount of the plaintiff's claim.

**TIP: The Courts have been fiddling with this regulation constantly and it changes almost every year. As a result it is a bit of a mess. A Notice of Motion used to be an application that needed to be judicially considered and upon which argument might be heard from each party. This took time and cost money. It deserved to attract a large fee. Simpler administrative applications that did not require argument to be heard or judicial consideration used to be called "Applications" and were simply checked by a senior clerk in the Court office and then "rubber stamped" by a clerk under delegated authority from the Registrar. The much smaller cost of dealing with these adminstrative matters was incorporated into the initial filing fee for the Statement of Claim as a "global fee" way back in 1978. All applications, however, are now called Notices of Motion, mainly because the peopole writing the legislation didn't think carefully about what they were doing. There is therefore no longer any clear delineation by way of nomenclature to separate out simple administrative applications from more complex judicial motions. The fee structure, however, still maintains some delineation, corrupted though it may be. For that reason, the fee for the filing of a Form 20 Notice of Motion is not payable in relaton to specialised Notices of Motion such as a Form 38 - Notice of Motion for Default Judgment, a Form 46 - Notice of Motion to Pay by Instalments; a Form 69 - Notice of Motion to issue a Garnishee Order; and so on, as these are of an administratie nature. The problem is that most Court staff have never had this explained to them and may request payment of a fee where none is required! In addition there is the general rule, with some exceptions, that Notices of Motion are not used in the Small Claims Division before judgment is entered. Any application made to the Court prior to judgment in the Small Claims Division is supposed to be made orally. Despite this, many Courts will refuse to accept an oral application and direct you to file a Notice of Motion. Are they going to require you (illegally?) to pay filing fees for the Notice of Motion when none is required?

***TIP: This is one of the few court fees that is not GST exempt. This is because the same service is offered by private enterprise Commercial Agents. So, while you may have paid this fee to the Court or a Commercial Agent for service of a document to be attempted, you may not reclaim the GST portion from your opponent if you are suing for a business related matter and have an A.B.N. . This is because you are expected to re-claim the GST portion of the fee from the government as a GST tax credit on your Business Affairs Statement and, so, will not have really incurred the GST portion. This is part of your general duty to mitigate cost. For example, you pay the $52.00 service fee but can only claim on the document to be served a service fee of $47.27. Complicated, isn't it! The courts, however, seem to be turning a blind eye to it because they can't know each party's tax arrangements and so thousands of plaintiffs are "double dipping" on their GST. This is a great potential source for filing defences or setting aside judgments.

GENERAL NOTE: This scale of costs includes a scheme introduced from 1 October, 2003 to create a new scheme of doubling most of the fees payable by corporations. This absurd systems now mirrors the nonsense long perpetrated by the Supreme Court. This clearly demonstates that these "fees" are not fees at all but taxes because they are levied not according to the work actually done but according to perceived ability to pay. To soften the blow, the regulation allows a corporation with an annual turnover of less than $200,000 to apply for exemption and be allowed to pay the lower "non corporation" fee. This is done by filing an Affidavit of Annual Turnover annexing copies of financial statements showing turnover to be less than $200,000. This must be filed with each piece of new process commencing action. No scale costs are allowed for its completion. Clerks of the court have been supplied the following list indicating what types of institutions are deemed "Corporations" for the purposes of this new fee scheme and what types are not required to pay the double fee:-

CORPORATIONS REQUIRED TO PAY THE DOUBLE FEE:-
Charitable organisations; Clubs; Companies bearing the terms "Inc.", Ltd" & "Pty. Ltd" in their names; Co-operatives; Medical funds; Permanant Trustee; Private Hospitals; Private Schools; Public Trustee; Religious organisations; Strata Bodies; Unincorporated associations; Universities; Incorporated Legal Practices. As from 15 August, 2005, insurance companies suing under subrogation in the names of their clients have to pay the doubled fee.

CORPORATIONS NOT REQUIRED TO PAY THE DOUBLE FEE:-
Corporation sole (a Church diocese); Corporations with proven income of less than $200K; Electricity Authorities (such as Energy Australia); Federal Government Departments and agencies; Individuals; Interestate Government bodies; Legal practionioners who act for an individual; Liquidators where the name of the liquidator is used instead of the liquidated company; Local government; a N.S.W. Ministerial Corporation; State Goverment agencies; State Rail Authority; coal Mines Board; State Governmetn Departments; the State of N.S.W.; State Government bodies that are Budget dependant.

Any intelligent person can see that some of these categories are rather questionable. Why, for example would an unincorporated association be treated as a "corporation" when it is clearly unincorporated and must sue or be sued personally in the names of its governinng committee?