PT-2024-BRS-000056 - [2025] EWHC 2325 (Ch)

The current application seeks:

“An Order that Trust Inheritance Limited are joined as a costs-only party to the will rectification claim or that the negligence claim issued against them and the claim number L53YX784 in the Truro County Court be joined with these proceedings making Trust Inheritance Limited a party to the entire conjoined proceedings.”

The court has power to consolidate proceedings under CPR rule 3.1(2)(h), and to try two or more claims on the same occasion (CPR rule 3.1(2)(i)). However, the notion of “conjoined” proceedings is not known to the CPR. I have therefore treated the alternative part of this application as one for consolidation of the two sets of proceedings.

The evidence relied upon by the claimants is set out in box 10 of the application notice. That evidence does not deal with the primary claim that the testator died intestate, but it does explain how the alternative claims for rectification arise. It submits that the rectification claims arise from the negligence of the respondent, and that it is just and reasonable for the respondent to bear the costs associated with those claims. It refers to a mediation arranged by the claimants and the first defendant to seek to resolve both the probate and the rectification claims, and seeks (i) an order joining the respondent to these proceedings for costs purposes only, and (ii) an order requiring the respondent to attend and take part in the mediation. At the hearing I was told that the mediation had already been arranged to take place on 17 October 2025, then about six weeks ahead.

At the end of the hearing on 4 September 2025, I did not give an extempore judgment, as I wished to think further about the case. I said that I would give my decision as soon as I could, probably early in the following week, with written reasons to follow. On Tuesday 9 September I informed the parties that I had decided to consolidate the two sets of proceedings, to order the claimants to file and serve particulars of claim in the negligence proceedings by 4 pm on 17 September 2025, thereafter to stay the proceedings pending the mediation on 17 October 2025, and to order the respondent to attend and participate in that mediation. This judgment contains my reasons for those decisions.