The Family Court’s decision in Pool v Pool [2026] EWFC 226 (B) arose from an adjourned First Appointment in financial remedies proceedings at which a wasted costs application against the respondent husband’s former solicitors was withdrawn after counsel for the applicant wife conceded that no Form N260 had been prepared or served.
Background
Pool v Pool [2026] EWFC 226 (B) arose from financial remedies proceedings in the Family Court, in which the applicant wife, Sabrina Pool, sought the transfer of a tenancy into her sole name following the breakdown of a marriage that had lasted from 1998 to 2018. Divorce proceedings were issued in 2024. By March 2025, the parties appeared to have reached an informal agreement on the tenancy transfer, and the respondent husband, Jean-Paul Pool, attended Ash Solicitors in West London to instruct them to prepare a consent order. The wife declined to agree to a dismissal of claims without financial disclosure, instructed MacKenzie & Co, and proceedings were issued in October 2025.
Ash Solicitors indicated in correspondence that the husband remained willing to transfer the tenancy, but by 17 November 2025 they reported that they were without instructions, the husband having communicated only that he was sick. He was not heard from again. He is rumoured now to be in the Seychelles, and he has filed no documents and taken no further part in the proceedings.
The First Appointment was listed for 4 February 2026. The husband filed no Form E and no other documentation. Shortly before that hearing, Ash Solicitors went on the record as acting for the husband and filed a document headed “Respondent Husband’s Position Statement for the FDA“. That document asserted, among other things, that it was “common knowledge” that the husband suffered from mental health difficulties, had been hospitalised, and was in no fit state to participate in the proceedings. Ash Solicitors did not attend the hearing, did not contact the court to explain their absence, and the husband was neither present nor represented.
The court, acting on the capacity assertions in the position statement, ordered that a medical report on the husband’s capacity be prepared and adjourned the First Appointment. It also directed that a member of Ash Solicitors file a statement explaining their conduct and their failure to take any steps to ascertain the husband’s capacity. The court indicated that the adjourned hearing would consider whether a wasted costs order should be made against the firm.
A statement was duly filed on 24 July 2026, signed by Santhya Sasitharan of Ash Solicitors. It disclosed that after the firm’s initial meeting with the husband in March 2025, a social worker at the Royal Free Hospital had made contact regarding the husband’s housing situation. The statement acknowledged that the firm had understood the treatment to be related to mental health but had been unable to contact the husband or his support worker to confirm this. It then stated that it had been “further clarified” that it was the husband’s father who suffered from mental health difficulties. Correspondence disclosed alongside the statement revealed that the social worker in question was attached to a team at the hospital with no connection to mental health services.
The adjourned hearing took place on 3 August 2026 before Deputy District Judge Hales, sitting remotely at the Royal Courts of Justice. The wife was present and represented by counsel, Natalya Evans. The husband did not appear. Representatives of Ash Solicitors attended for part of the hearing.
Costs Issues Before the Court
The primary costs question before the court was whether a wasted costs order should be made against Ash Solicitors pursuant to the court’s jurisdiction under section 51 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 and the procedural framework in CPR 46.8, as applied in family proceedings through FPR 28.2. The application had been foreshadowed at the February 2026 hearing and was confirmed at the outset of the August hearing by counsel for the wife.
The conduct said to ground the application was the filing of a position statement asserting, without any evidential basis, that the husband lacked capacity to engage in proceedings; going on the record without instructions from the husband; failing to attend the First Appointment without notifying the court; and, separately, forwarding the remote hearing link to a third party without the court’s permission.
A secondary issue arose from the wife’s own solicitors’ conduct. The judge noted that the failure to file and serve a Form N260 had caused the wasted costs application to be withdrawn, and observed that this failure was likely to result in a direct cost to Mrs Pool. The judge stated that he would hope that MacKenzie & Co would absorb that cost burden rather than pass it to their client.
A further procedural point arose in relation to the wife’s solicitors having exhibited the entirety of the pleadings from Family Law Act proceedings between the parties to a statement filed in the financial remedies proceedings, without having obtained permission from the Brentford Family Court for that disclosure and without any order having been made at the original First Appointment.
The Parties’ Positions
At the outset of the hearing, Ms Evans confirmed on behalf of the wife that a wasted costs order was sought against Ash Solicitors. The application rested on the conduct described above: the filing of a position statement containing assertions about the husband’s capacity for which the firm had no evidential foundation, going on the record without instructions, failing to attend the First Appointment, and forwarding the hearing link to a third party without permission.
However, on inquiry by the court, Ms Evans conceded that no Form N260 had been prepared or served on Ash Solicitors. Following a short adjournment, Ms Evans communicated by email that the wife no longer pursued the wasted costs application. The judgment records that this withdrawal was presumably a consequence of the absence of the N260, though no formal explanation was provided to the court.
Ash Solicitors, represented initially by Ms Sasitharan and subsequently by Ms Veronica Lartey, who was introduced as the person with supervisory responsibility for family work at the firm, did not advance any substantive defence to the wasted costs application before it was withdrawn. During the court’s subsequent inquiry, Ms Lartey accepted that the firm had no instructions to go on the record in February 2026, that there was no evidence to support the capacity assertions in the position statement, and that the assumption about the social worker’s connection to the mental health team had been an error for which she could offer no explanation. She also accepted, after a struggle, that permission to forward the remote hearing link to a third party was a matter for the court alone.
The Court’s Decision
The wasted costs application was withdrawn before any determination was made, and the court made no wasted costs order. The withdrawal followed the concession by the wife’s counsel that no Form N260 had been prepared or served.
Once the application was withdrawn, the court did not simply move on. The judge used the explanatory statement that had been directed at the February hearing, the correspondence with the hospital social worker that Ash Solicitors had disclosed, and the oral concessions made by Ms Lartey during the hearing to record a series of matters. The judge recorded that Ash Solicitors had no instructions from the husband when they went on the record in February 2026; that the capacity assertions in the position statement were made without any evidential basis and rested on an assumption that was demonstrably wrong; and that the firm had forwarded the remote hearing link to a third party without the court’s knowledge or permission.
The judge described this conduct as “utterly extraordinary” and stated that it had resulted in the firm misleading the Court, though he made clear he did not suggest this was deliberate or that the firm had anything to gain. He characterised the conduct as betraying “carelessness, ignorance of the rules and, it is not too strong to say, utter incompetence.” The judge also noted that if all these steps were conducted by Ms Sasitharan, a solicitor apprentice and not an admitted solicitor, it was a further poor reflection on the firm, betraying a failure to ensure proper and competent supervision of non-admitted staff.
In relation to the wife’s solicitors, the judge noted the failure to file and serve an N260, for which there was no explanation and which led to the withdrawal of the application. He stated that this failure was likely to lead to a direct cost to Mrs Pool, and that he would hope her solicitors would take the necessary steps to ensure the relevant cost burden was undertaken by them rather than by her. He also noted that the wife’s solicitors had exhibited what appeared to be the entire pleadings from Family Law Act proceedings between the parties without permission from the Brentford Family Court, and that no order had been made at the original First Appointment. The judge observed that none of the legal professionals in the case had covered themselves with glory.
The judgment concludes with the judge expressing the hope that it would lead to those involved reflecting upon their conduct, seeking further training or guidance, and ensuring that their clients receive a significantly improved level of service in the future. He stated that parties to family proceedings, many of whom are spending money they can ill afford, deserve no less from the legal professionals involved, and that the competent conduct of legal proceedings is not negotiable.
Analysis | The N260 Point
Neither CPR 46.8, PD 46 nor FPR 28.2 expressly requires a schedule of costs to be filed at the show cause stage of a wasted costs application. The procedural framework requires notice to the legal representative and an opportunity to respond, but does not prescribe the form that notice must take or the documents that must accompany it. Form N260 is not mentioned in the wasted costs rules themselves. That is not the whole picture. PD 44 para 9.5 applies to family proceedings through FPR 28.2 and imposes a positive duty on any party intending to claim costs to prepare a written statement following Form N260 as closely as possible, filed and served in accordance with para 9.5(4), in any case to which para 9.2 applies. Para 9.2 sets the general rule that the court should assess summarily at the conclusion of any hearing lasting not more than one day. Para 9.6 supplies the sanction for non-compliance. So a costs schedule is not a condition precedent to issuing the application, but it is required where summary assessment is in prospect.
In this case, the absence of an N260 led directly to the withdrawal of the application. The judgment does not record any ruling by the judge that an N260 was required as a matter of law, nor does it contain any analysis of whether the application could have proceeded without one. The withdrawal followed counsel’s concession, not a judicial determination. What the case demonstrates is that the absence of a costs schedule made the application practically unviable, even if not legally defective.
The practical lesson is clear. A wasted costs application seeks an order that a legal representative pay costs personally. The court cannot make such an order without knowing what costs are claimed and on what basis. Without a schedule, the court has no evidential foundation on which to assess quantum, even if liability were established. The application becomes an exercise in principle divorced from remedy.
Applicants should file a schedule in any event. The rules do not make one a condition of issuing the application, but PD 44 para 9.5 engages once the matter reaches a hearing at which costs will be claimed and summarily assessed, and para 9.6 gives the court a discretion to take any failure into account. The risk of withdrawal, as occurred here, is otherwise substantial. Whether the court would in every case treat the absence of a schedule as ending the application is not decided by this judgment, which records no ruling on the point.
Analysis What Survived the Withdrawal
The court’s inquiry did not end when the wasted costs application was withdrawn. The judge had already directed that Ash Solicitors file an explanatory statement, and that statement had been filed and served. The firm’s representatives attended the hearing. The judge used that material, together with the disclosed correspondence and the oral concessions made by Ms Lartey, to place on the record a series of observations about the firm’s conduct.
Those observations are now part of a published judgment. They record that the firm went on the record without instructions, asserted incapacity without evidence, failed to attend a hearing without explanation, and forwarded a hearing link to a third party without permission. The judge described the conduct as “utterly extraordinary” and as betraying “carelessness, ignorance of the rules and, it is not too strong to say, utter incompetence.”
These are not findings made pursuant to a wasted costs order, because no such order was made. But they are judicial observations made after inquiry, recorded in a judgment, and based on admissions made by the firm’s own representative. Their status is not equivalent to findings made in a contested wasted costs application, but they are not without weight. They may be deployed in a fresh, properly constituted wasted costs application if one is brought. They may be relevant to a referral to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. They may be relevant in any dispute between the wife and her own solicitors about the costs consequences of the failed application.
Practitioners should note that withdrawal of a wasted costs application does not necessarily insulate the respondent from scrutiny or from the consequences of what emerges during the court’s inquiry. If the court has already directed evidence and conducted a hearing, the material that comes to light may survive the withdrawal and may be used for other purposes.
Analysis | The Permission Points
Two separate permission issues arose in this case, both of which were treated as procedural failures by the judge. The first concerned the wife’s solicitors, who had exhibited the entirety of the pleadings from Family Law Act proceedings between the parties to a statement filed in the financial remedies proceedings. No permission had been sought from the Brentford Family Court, which had conducted the Family Law Act proceedings, and no order had been made at the original First Appointment in the financial remedies proceedings authorising the disclosure.
The second concerned Ash Solicitors, who had forwarded the remote hearing link for the First Appointment to a social worker at the Royal Free Hospital, inviting her to attend. This had been done without the court’s permission and without notifying either the court or the wife’s legal team.
Both are permission points, but they are different in kind. The first concerns the use of documents from one set of proceedings in another. The second concerns the disclosure of a confidential hearing link to a third party and the invitation to that third party to attend a private hearing. The first is a question of which court’s permission is needed and whether it can be implied from case management directions. The second is a question of whether permission was needed at all, a question to which the answer is plainly yes.
Ms Lartey accepted, after a struggle, that responsibility for granting permission to invite a third party to a hearing lay with the court alone. That concession was rightly made. The hearing was a private family proceedings hearing. Attendance is restricted. A party’s legal representative has no unilateral right to invite third parties, however well-intentioned the motive. The court controls its own process, and permission must be sought in advance.
The wife’s solicitors’ position is less clear-cut. Pleadings from related proceedings are often exhibited to statements in financial remedies cases, particularly where they are relevant to the issues in dispute. Whether express permission is required, and from which court, depends on the nature of the documents, the purpose for which they are being used, and whether any order restricting disclosure was made in the original proceedings. The judge’s observation that no permission had been sought and no order made suggests that he considered permission was required, but the judgment does not analyse the point in detail.
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