A how to guide on how to prepare and submit a court bundle, which you are required to do as part of Financial Remedy proceedings, written by Wikivorce.
Introduction
A court bundle is a collection of all the documents related to your case. The purpose of a court bundle is so the judge can get some background on your case before the hearing and help the judge understand your case. The court bundle can also be used in court to refer to documents. Bundles can also be useful tools for yourself as all your documents will be in one place and organised and can reduce stress when trying to prepare for a hearing. You will need to update the court bundle as the case progresses.
There are 2 types of court bundles, a paper bundle (a physical version of your court bundle in a lever-arch file) and an electronic bundle (a version of your bundle that is electronic and in PDF form). The court will tell you what type of bundle you need to produce, electronic bundles are the most used.
A court bundle will need to include things such as -
- Preliminary documents
- Applications
- Orders
- Statements
- Affidavits
- Expert reports
The reason for a court bundle is to make sure that each party and the court has the same relevant documents. A court bundle should be 350 pages or under. The court bundle should be split up in to sections such as -
- Section A - Preliminary documents (Case summary, Statement of issues, Position statement, Chronology).
- Section B - Any applications and orders that have been made/issued during the court proceedings. (Specific issues, Interim orders, child arrangement orders ect)
- Section C - Statements (statements from you and your ex, and anyone else that may have made a statement including affidavits).
- Section D - Expert and other reports (reports from experts such as CAFCASS, doctors, psychologists, mortgage brookers, ect).
- Section E - Other documents (other relevant documents that don't fit in to any of the other sections).
All these documents will help to give the court a comprehensive view of the case. The court bundle should read as a timeline of the case, meaning that everything should be in chronological order, So when you start putting together these sections you will need to put the oldest document at the start of the section and the newest at the back. So, for example for section B your first document would be the application.
Court bundle rules and guidelines.
These rules and guidelines may change if your court give you any specific rules to follow for your individual case, please check you are following the correct rules if any have been given to you by your court.
E-bundle -
- E-bundles must be provided in PDF format.
- All pages in your e-bundle must be numbered by computer generated numbering rather than done by hand. The numbering should start at page 1 for the first page of the bundle (whether or not that is part of an index) and the numbering must follow sequentially to the last page of the bundle, so that the pagination matches the PDF numbering, if a paper copy of the bundle is produced, the pagination must match the e-bundle.
- Each entry in the index must be hyperlinked to the indexed document. All significant documents and all sections in bundles must be bookmarked for ease of navigation, with a short description as the bookmark, The bookmark should contain the page number of the document.
- All pages in an e-bundle that contain typed text must be subject to OCR (optical character recognition) If they have not been created directly as electronic text documents. This makes it easier to search for text, to highlight parts of a page and to copy text from the bundle.
- Any page that has been created in landscape orientation should appear in that orientation so it can be read left to right, No page should appear upside down,
- The default view for all pages should be 100%.
- If a core bundle is required, then a PDF core bundle should be produced complying with the same requirements as a paper bundle.
- Thought should be given to the number of bundles required, it is usually better to have a single hearing e-bundle and (where appropriate) a separate single authorities e-bundle (compiled in accordance with these requirements), Rather than multiple bundles (and follow any applicable court specific guidelines).
- The resolution of the bundle should not be greater than 300 DNI (dots per inch), in order to avoid slow scrolling or rendering. The bundle should be electronically optimised so as to ensure that the file size is not larger than necessary.
- If a bundle is to be added to after it has been transmitted to the judge, then new pages should be added at the end of the bundle (and paginated accordingly). An enquiry should be made of the court as to the best way of providing the additional material. Subject to any different direction, the judge should be provided with both (a) the new section and separately, (b) the revised bundle, This is because the judge may have already marker up the original bundle.
- Spacing should be 1.5 (both paper and e-bundle).
- Margin should be 2cm (both paper and e-bundle)>
Paper bundle -
- You will need a good quality ring binder/lever-arch file to store and organise the court bundle, please remember that you can only have 350 pages in one file and if your court bundle is more than 350 pages you will need more than one file.
- On the spine of the file you will need to use white sticky labels to put the case number, the date of the hearing and the title of what's in the file (you can just write 'Court Bundle') and who's copy it is (Applicant's copy, Respondent's copy ect). Use separate labels for each heading, so you should have 4 labels on the spine. These should be typed, not hand written, and be in bold lettering.
- On the front of the file, you will need to use another sticky label with the case number, the date of the hearing and the name of the judge who is hearing your case, This should be on the top left hand corner on the front of the file. Again this should be typed, but you can use smaller lettering.
- If your court bundle is more than one file, you will need to also use a sticky label lettering each folder, e.g A,B,C ect).
- All pages in the court bundle MUST be numbered (1,2,3 ect) and the number should be on the very top of the page in a header so you, the respondent and the judge can navigate the court bundle quickly.
- You MUST have an index page listing all the documents, what section they are in and what page number they are.
- You will need to use binder dividers with a sicky label on the front saying what section it is (e.g. Section A - Preliminary documents'). You can also write what section it is on the tab of the divider to make navigation quick and easy.
- Make sure there is enough room in the margin on the side of the page for the holes from the hole punch, the writing should start after the hole in the margin and should not overlap.
What you will need to prepare a court bundle
There are some things you will need before you can start preparing your court bundle, here is a list of things you will need. When preparing your court bundle it is very important to stay organised, this will help keep the process of preparing your court bundle much easier.
For a paper bundle you will need -
- Arch-lever file/Ring binder (you will need more than one if your court bundle is over 350 pages)
- White sticky labels
- Page dividers
- Computer/Laptop with an internet connection
- Printer/Scanner
- Hole punch
- Highlighters and pens
For an electronic bundle you will need -
- Computer/Laptop with an internet connection
- Scanner
- PDF conversion tool (ilovepdf, adobe acrobat)
- Electronic PDF versions of all your court documents - you can do this by scanning your documents and converting them in to a PDF.
- Backup - You should have a back up of all your documents and the court bundle itself so you don't lose it or accidently delete it, you can do this with cloud storage (such as google drive, dropbox, onedrive) or by using an external harddrive/USB stick. If you do use an external harddrive/USB stick make sure to keep these in a safe place where you can easily find them.
- Naming system - You should create a consistent and simple naming system for all your documents so the judge and yourself can find the documents you are looking for quickly, such as 'S1Chronology' (Section 1 Chronology) and keep each section in its own folder.
Who is required to submit a court bundle
Only the Applicant is required to produce and submit a court bundle, this can be done by their solicitor. If the applicant is a Litigant-in-person, then it is the responsibility of the respondent to do so, this can also be done by their solicitor. If no one in the case has a solicitor then you will only need to produce a court bundle if the court orders you to do so. You will need 3 copies of the court bundle, one for the applicant, one for the respondent and one for the court. It is also a good idea to keep an extra one on you during court hearings incase another one is needed for another party.
Although one party will be assigned the lead responsibility for the bundle - it is in effect a joint document.
So if you are not taking the lead on the bundle you still need to think about what documents you want to submit to the bundle and you will need to send those documents to the other party asking that they add them to the bundle. There should be no dispute about adding the standard documents (those shown in the index page) to the bundle. However, sometimes when you ask for extra documents to be added e.g. an expert report to support your case such as a medical report, the other party sometimes fails to add them to the bundle, often with some excuse such as saying that they got the document too late. So to ensure that all the documents that you want to present to court are in the bundle then we recommend that you submit documents for inclusion in plenty of time and chase the other party for confirmation of what is included which you can do by requesting to see the latest copy of the index page.
When is the court bundle due
Court bundles are due 2 days BEFORE the final hearing. The court also may request one sooner. It is extremely important to get your court bundle in on time or you risk delaying the entire process.
Costs
You may incur costs if you need to request a certain document from experts, solicitors ect.
Types of court bundles
Court bundle example
How to submit your court bundle
To submit your court bundle you will need to send it to the court that is dealing with your case 2 days BEFORE the final hearing, or the date the court tells you if the court needs it sooner.
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