Rule 15: The Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Property Chamber) Rules 2013/1169: Calculating time

(1) An act required by these Rules, a practice direction or a direction to be done on or by a particular day must be done before 5pm on that day.

(2) If the time specified by these Rules, a practice direction or a direction for doing any act ends on a day other than a working day, the act is done in time if it is done on the next working day.

(3) In this rule “working day” means any day except a Saturday or Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday or a bank holiday under section 1 of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971.

The new Tribunal gives an hour longer for compliance than the Civil Procedure Rules, for which the deadline is 4pm.

In the LVT, I have found that the Tribunal takes care to avoid the need for subrule (2): it is rare that the date by which something must be done falls on anything other than a working weekday.

When the rule requires an act to be done within a given period, when does time start to run? When does it end?

The clue to the starting of time, so to speak, is often in the wording of the provision in question. More often than not, the new rules use the phrase “within [x] days after the date on which …”. In those cases logic suggests that time will start to run on the day following the action referred to, and end at 5pm [x] days thereafter.

So, for example, under rule 11, a case must not be started “where a fee remains unpaid for a period of 14 days after the date on which the fee is payable.” If a fee is payable on 01 March, time begins to run on 02 March, and the 14 days expire at 5pm on 15 March.