Wilsons Solicitors

14 days

Some more minor criminal offences, especially motoring offences, are subject to a rule that says you cannot be prosecuted unless you have had a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) within 14 days.

3 Months

Employment Tribunals, i.e., unfair dismissal, constructive dismissal, discrimination, breach of employment contract claims, claims for underpaid wages, etc.

Some of these can be extended to 6 months in certain circumstances.

6 Months

Most minor criminal offences prosecuted in the Magistrates Court.

Discrimination claims in the County Court.

In divorce proceedings, you cannot rely on any act of unreasonable behaviour or adultery if you live with your spouse for more than 6 months after learning of it. However most unreasonable behaviour and most adultery is continuing, and every new act restarts the 6 months.

1 Year

Defamation.

Divorce: you cannot get divorced until you have been married for 12 months.

Unfair dismissal: normally, 12 months continuous service with the same employer is required before a claim can be brought.

2 Years

Certain claims in relation to things happening during international transportation, i.e., ships or planes, etc.

3 Years

Most claims for compensation for personal injuries incurred in an accident.

6 Years

Most other claims not covered elsewhere.

12 Years

Certain probate trust claims and claims for the recovery of land.

15 years

'Long stop' time limit — see 'When does the period start?'.

Time limits tends to start running from the event complained of even if, as happens sometimes, you don't even know it's happened until later on. Sometimes indeed there are situations where people don't know that something's gone on that they could sue for until after the time limit has already expired.

In this situation, there is provision for the time limit to run for at least 3 years from the date of knowledge of the affected person, even if that would normally take them beyond the normal time limit. Obviously most people who have been in an accident know that they have been in an accident so this makes little difference in practical terms in accident cases.

However you might, for example, be complaining about a medical procedure It may be that your concern is that an operation was incorrectly carried out and caused you extra injury. In that event you might not know anything about it for months or years thereafter. Or you might have had n extension built to your house, for example, and never knew there was anything wrong with it until the day it collapsed. In these events the time limit would not start until you actually got to know about it.

This extension is however subject to a 15 year 'long stop', as it is called. This is supposed to mean you cannot claim after 15 years irrespective of other circumstances, but clever lawyers can and do get around this all the time.

In most cases the time limit is the limit for actually commencing court proceedings to make the claim in question, and in most cases commencement of court proceedings can be a simple paperwork procedure (or at least relatively simple by the standards of much legal paperwork).

It is not necessary to actually have the whole of the court process gone through right to the very end with a hearing in a court with judge and lawyers, all within the time limit period. Once the proceedings have been started that is enough to satisfy the time limit. The proceedings themselves will then continue thereafter.

Bear in mind also however that although this filing of papers to start proceedings is in itself a quite straightforward job, the drafting and preparation of those papers might not be. So it is still not a good idea to leave taking appropriate advice until the very last minute. You need to leave time for the relevant documentation to be properly prepared, and this can take several weeks or even months if the job is to be done properly as it should be.

Sometimes, but not always, a claim might be able to be made even beyond the usual time limit.

This is almost invariably however subject to permission for the claim to be brought late from a judge. It is not a matter of entitlement. This permission will usually be turned down unless there are good reasons for leaving it late.

So if you are too late to bring a claim it is always worth getting expert advice on whether you can bring a late claim. But if you're in time do it right away, do it. Don't leave it until later thinking you can just ask for permission, because that probably won't work.

Children

As a general rule time limits cannot run against a child. Therefore if, for example, a child is injured during early life the normal 3 year time limit to bring a compensation claim in relation to those injuries does not even begin to run until the child's 18th birthday.

Therefore for all practical purposes for child injuries the time limit is the child's 21st birthday (ie 3 years after 18), and even then could be extended as explained above.

The Incapacitated

The same applies to adults who are unable to manage their own affairs through incapacity (e.g. through Alzheimers disease or dementia, or something like that). Such adults are treated, while they remain incapacitated, rather like children for time limits purposes. Time cannot begin to run against them until they have resumed their capacity, if they ever do, and if time is already running against them prior to their incapacity, the clock is suspended while they are incapacitated.

Say for example an adult suffers an injury in an accident. The 3 year time limit for claiming for that injury starts to run immediately. Say for the sake of argument 1 year later the same adult loses capacity. The time limit clock will then stop ticking until such time as they recover, if they ever recover. If and when they do recover the clock will start ticking again on the remaining 2 years of their 3 year normal time limit for bringing a claim for the injury.