£3358 divorce cost/bill against me

: paying or recovering costs 0 Minutes ago
Hi, I am challenging the bill (court ordered in nov 2018) of £3358 for the divorce costs.
I am the responded and the divorced was not defended. However It was difficult to receive the application so quite a few emails were exchanged.
I have agreed to pay application fee £550 and service fee of £150, which I will ask to pay in the instalments (question if I can pay in instalments)
The rest of the amount is very shady. I have asked now twice for the details invoice and all I have received is this:

I believe this is not detailed enough, as it doesn’t show what email, letter dates and etc. How do I challenge it?

Many thanks
V. M


Statement of Costs
De­script­ion of fee earners (name, position, hourly rate claimed)
(A)[name removed], Partner, £425
( [name removed], Associate, £325
(C) [name removed], Trainee, £160
(D) [name removed], Paralegal, £135
Letters out/emails
Hours
(A) 1.7 hours
( 0.4 hours
(C) 0.2 hours
(D) 5.7 hours
Personal Attendances
(A) 1.2 hours
( 0 hours
(C) 0 hours
(D) 0 hours
Drafting Documents
(A) 1.1 hours
( 0.2 hours
(C) 0 hours
(D) 1.52 hours
Charged* £612.54 £102.72 £15.94 £747.82
£424.78 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00
£375.17 £51.36 £0.00 £164.67

Telephone
(A) 0.4 hours
( 0 hours
(C) 0 hours
(D) 0.2 hours
Disbursements
£136.43 £0.00 £0.00 £26.59
Total: £2,658.02
Process server Fees for service of divorce petition, Notice of Proceedings and Acknowledgement of Service
Court fee for Petition
Total: £3,358.02

I think you can ask the court to assess the costs.

It would be interesting to know what other people on here have paid. My understanding is that the basic bill, including petition, would be £12-1500.

The costs should only be those involved in drawing up and submitting the petition.

I would be interested to know what the 5.7 hours was for.

Hadenoughnow

Divorce costs against me. I was ordered to pay divorce costs.. the bill originally was £3358 in August when I was not happy with lack of details about the bill I have asked for the detailed breakdown.. the Bills comes to £5662!! Can they add extra just for spending time on the breakdown? Confused.. plus I refuse to pay the bill and agreed to pay £700 in instalments. Now they are chasing me for the rest )

Looking at the original bill, it seems there are costs for a process server. This may well account for why the original bill was quite high. Presumably you did not return the acknowledgement of service and had to be personally served with the petition?

Have you received many communications about the bill? Bear in mind that there is a charge for every letter. If the letter has come from the highest fee earner costs would soon mount up.

As per my previous advice, you can ask the court for the bill to be assessed.

Hadenoughnow

I was never served, eventually I had to get the application from the post office. As I wasn’t home to sign for it.
I have asked for the breakdown however I was never told i will have to pay for that breakdown or to pay for every letter l/email. I was ordered to pay divorce costs but that means they can add anything they want and call it “divorce costs?”

hadenoughnow, what form would I use to have the bill assessed and what steps do I need to take