When is the deadline for dismissal for long delay, the drop dead rule?
The catalogue records a 3 years period from The last significant advance in the action. This draft page remains free only until its source, worked example and limits are reviewed.
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Calculation basis and source
- Period
- 3 years
- Trigger
- The last significant advance in the action
- Counting
- The encoded calculator method must be independently documented before publication.
- Rollovers and holidays
- Holiday, closure and order treatment must be independently documented before publication.
This route remains in preparation until a pinpoint official source is recorded.
- None to extend. Dismissal is MANDATORY on application once the period runs, subject only to the internal carve-outs. The excluded periods are defined by r 4.33(4) (the earlier of the interval between service of the statement of claim on the applicant and service of that applicant's defence, or one year after service of the statement of claim), and by suspension periods agreed under r 4.33(5) or (7)(a) or ordered under r 4.33(9).
- EXPRESSLY NON-EXTENDABLE: r 4.33(10) disapplies r 13.5 entirely. This is a mandatory dismissal, not a discretionary one, which distinguishes it from r 4.31. Counted under r 13.4(3) and (4). This is a procedural guillotine, not a limitation period; the Limitations Act runs in parallel. Rollover caveat: r 4.33(2) is not a period within which a party must do a specified thing, it is a period after whose expiry the Court must dismiss on application. Interpretation Act s 22(1) and (2) are drafted for "the time limited for the doing of a thing" and sit awkwardly here. The rollover value is retained for engine consistency but a date one day either side of the third anniversary should never be relied on without advice.