How to Complete and Serve Form N242A: Part 36 Offer to Settle

Form N242A is the standard notice for making a Part 36 offer to settle under Section I of the Civil Procedure Rules in England and Wales. Download the current PDF from GOV.UK, fill in the case details and your proposed terms, sign it, and serve it on the other side’s solicitor. You do not file the form at court.¹ Get the form right and it triggers automatic cost consequences that can shift substantial liability onto a party who refuses a reasonable deal.

When Form N242A Applies

Either side can use the form at almost any stage of proceedings, to settle all of a claim, part of it, a specific issue, or a counterclaim. It also covers additional claims, appeals, cross-appeals, and detailed costs assessment proceedings.

Two situations sit outside its scope. You cannot use N242A for a case allocated to the small claims track.¹ And claims proceeding under the RTA Protocol or the EL/PL Protocol fall under Section III of Part 36 and use different forms.² Standard personal injury claims outside those low-value protocols do use N242A, and the form has dedicated sections for provisional damages and recoverable benefits.

Completing the Form Section by Section

The form runs to five pages. Much of it is tick-box work once you have your case file open.³

Page 1: Case Details and Offer Framework

Enter the claim number and the full names of every claimant and defendant, with any party references, exactly as they appear on the court record. Any mismatch gives the other side a straightforward argument that the offer is defective. Add the name and address of the offeree or their solicitor.

Then state who is making the offer and tick whether it is a defendant’s or claimant’s Part 36 offer. Fill in the acceptance period: the number of days during which the defendant will be liable for the claimant’s costs under CPR 36.13 if the offer is accepted. This must be at least 21 days from the date of service, unless the offer is made fewer than 21 days before trial.²

Tick whether the offer relates to the whole claim, part of it, or a specific issue, and whether it concerns a claim, counterclaim, additional claim, appeal, cross-appeal, or detailed costs assessment. If you tick “part of” or “a certain issue,” give the details on the next page.

Page 2: Details of the Offer

Set out what you are proposing: the sum of money, any non-monetary terms, or both. Be specific. A vague offer makes the automatic cost consequences harder to enforce later. If the case involves a counterclaim or other adverse claim, state whether your offer takes it into account, and if only partly, which aspects are included. Ambiguity here creates trouble about what remains in dispute if the offer is accepted.

A monetary Part 36 offer is treated as inclusive of all interest up to the date the relevant period expires.² If you want interest to keep accruing after that date in case of late acceptance, say so expressly.

Page 3: Personal Injury Claims

If the claim is not a personal injury matter, tick “No” and move on. For personal injury claims, two extra questions apply. On provisional damages, you choose between offering to settle on the assumption the claimant will not develop a specified disease or deterioration (with a right to return to court if it occurs), or stating that the offer does not cover the provisional damages claim at all. On recoverable benefits, which is a defendant-only question, indicate whether the offer is made without regard to liability for recoverable benefits under the Social Security (Recovery of Benefits) Act 1997, or whether the gross compensation figure includes deductible benefits. If benefits apply, list the type and amount and state the resulting net figure.³

Pages 4 and 5: Signature and Acceptance

Page 4 takes the offeror’s full name, firm name if applicable, signature, position if signing for a firm or company, and the date. Page 5 is a built-in notice of acceptance for the recipient to complete. Leave Page 5 blank when you serve the form.

What Makes the Offer Legally Valid

CPR 36.5 sets out five requirements. Miss any of them and the court can still take the offer into account under the general costs rules, but the automatic Part 36 consequences fall away.²

The offer must be in writing. Form N242A satisfies this by default.
It must be identified as a Part 36 offer. The printed wording handles this, so check you have not struck through or altered the standard text.
It must specify a relevant period of at least 21 days during which the defendant will be liable for the claimant’s costs if accepted. This requirement does not apply if the offer is made fewer than 21 days before trial.
It must state whether it covers the whole claim, part of it, or a specific issue.
It must state whether it takes any counterclaim into account.

Serving the Completed Form

Serve the completed N242A on the other party’s solicitor, or on the party directly if they are unrepresented. The general service rules in CPR Part 6 apply unless Part 36 provides otherwise.⁴ Common methods are first-class post, personal delivery, or email if the recipient has agreed to accept documents electronically.

The deemed service date matters, because it starts the clock on your relevant period. For first-class post, service is deemed to take effect on the second day after posting, provided that day is a business day; if it is not, deemed service shifts to the next business day.⁴ The date the relevant period expires is when cost consequences begin to bite, so the calculation needs to be right.

Do not file the offer at court. Keeping it off the court file means the trial judge does not learn a settlement attempt was made. If the offer is later accepted, the notice of acceptance is filed with the court.⁵

Common Mistakes That Undermine an Offer

A surprising number of Part 36 offers fail on technicalities. The frequent problems: leaving the acceptance period blank or setting it at fewer than 21 days, omitting the statement about cost liability under CPR 36.13, and failing to say whether the offer covers the whole claim or just part of it. Any of these strips away the automatic cost consequences.²

Other pitfalls: serving the form on the party rather than their solicitor when they have legal representation, miscalculating the deemed service date so the relevant period is shorter than you intended, and making an ambiguous offer that does not address a live counterclaim. The tick-box structure catches most of these if you work through it methodically. Read it through once more before you sign and serve.

After You Serve the Offer

Acceptance

The offeree accepts by serving written notice on the offeror. Page 5 of the form is designed for this. A Part 36 offer can be accepted at any time, even after the relevant period has expired, unless it has been withdrawn.² Timing changes who pays costs.

If a defendant’s offer is accepted within the relevant period, the claimant recovers their costs of the proceedings, including recoverable pre-action costs, up to the date of acceptance, assessed on the standard basis if not agreed. Accept after the relevant period expires and the court will normally order the claimant to pay the offeror’s costs from expiry through to acceptance. That swing in liability is what pressures parties to respond promptly.

Court permission is required to accept in certain situations, including where trial is already in progress or where the case involves multiple defendants and not all of them have joined the offer.

Withdrawing or Changing an Offer

You can withdraw or change a Part 36 offer only if the other side has not already served notice of acceptance. Do so by serving written notice on the offeree.² After the relevant period expires, withdrawal or a less generous change is free of court permission. Before it expires, a withdrawal or a less generous change only takes effect once the period runs out, and if the offeree accepts the original terms in the meantime, the acceptance stands unless you apply for court permission to withdraw within seven days of the acceptance or before the first day of trial, whichever comes first. Improving the offer is treated as a fresh Part 36 offer, and a new 21-day relevant period begins.

Cost Consequences at Trial

If a claimant rejects a defendant’s Part 36 offer and then fails to beat it at trial, the court will normally order the claimant to pay the defendant’s costs from expiry of the relevant period, and the claimant loses their own costs for the same period.²

If a defendant rejects a claimant’s Part 36 offer and the claimant then obtains a judgment at least as advantageous as the offer, the consequences are heavier: enhanced interest on damages at up to 10% above base rate from expiry of the relevant period, the claimant’s costs from that point assessed on the indemnity basis, enhanced interest on those costs at up to 10% above base rate, and an additional amount calculated as 10% of the first £500,000 awarded and 5% of anything above that, capped at £75,000. The court can decline to impose these penalties if it would be unjust, weighing the terms of the offer, how early it was made, the information available at the time, and whether it represented a genuine attempt to settle.

Offers Made Fewer Than 21 Days Before Trial

An offer served fewer than 21 days before trial does not need to specify a 21-day relevant period, because CPR 36.5(1)(c) does not apply.² The trade-off is that a late offer loses the automatic CPR 36.17 cost consequences unless the court has abridged the relevant period, and if trial is already underway the offeree needs court permission to accept. The judge will still take a late offer into account when exercising general discretion on costs, but it does not carry the same weight as one served in good time.

1
GOV.UK. Notice of Offer to Settle: Form N242A
2
Justice UK. Part 36 – Offers to Settle
3
HM Courts & Tribunals Service. N242A Offer to Settle (Section I – Part 36)
4
Justice UK. Part 6 – Service of Documents
5
Justice UK. Practice Direction 36 – Offers to Settle