On paper, this is a small rules update from the Court of Session. In practice, it changes the maths behind civil expenses across Scotland’s courts from 10 October 2026. According to the text published on legislation.gov.uk, the unit used in the Taxation of Judicial Expenses Rules will rise from £18.00 to £22.10, a £4.10 jump that will feed into how recoverable solicitor costs are worked out. For court users, that matters because ‘taxation’ here does not mean tax in the everyday sense. It means the formal checking and assessment of an expenses account after a case, and that process can shape what the losing side may ultimately be asked to pay.

Made on 18 August and laid before the Scottish Parliament on 20 August, the Act of Sederunt was approved by the Court of Session after draft rules were submitted by the Scottish Civil Justice Council. Lord President Paul Cullen signed the instrument in Edinburgh, and it applies across the Court of Session, the Sheriff Appeal Court and the sheriff court. There is one line that solicitors will be watching closely in live cases. The new £22.10 unit only applies to work carried out on or after 10 October 2026. Anything done before that date stays on the old £18 basis, so firms will need to keep a clear eye on when work was actually done rather than simply when an account is sent in.

The change to the unit is the headline figure, and it is not a minor nudge. It amounts to an increase of just under 23 per cent, which means the rule book is recognising a higher figure for the work that sits behind civil litigation. For solicitors, that is likely to be read as a practical update to a system that cannot stand still while staffing, premises and compliance costs keep moving. For clients and opponents, the other side of that is plain enough: if recoverable expenses rise, the financial risk tied to a case can rise with them too.

The instrument also tidies up the wording around simple procedure, the route commonly used for lower-value civil disputes. Rule 3.7 is retitled ‘reduction of charges’ and recast so it is clear the rule applies where expenses in a simple procedure case are taxed or assessed by reference to the schedule 5 table of charges. That may sound like housekeeping, but clarity matters most in the cases where people are least able to absorb confusion. When rules are vague, arguments follow, and in smaller claims those arguments can swallow time and money out of all proportion to the sums at stake.

Another amendment is short, but it may prove just as useful in practice. Rule 4.2 now makes clear that allowable outlays include court fees. That gives firmer wording around a cost that can look routine on paper but still matters to the final bill. For court users, it means one less grey area in an already expensive process. For practitioners, it should reduce room for avoidable dispute when an account of expenses is being checked and challenged.

The wider point is that access to justice is shaped as much by technical court rules as by the bigger political rows that get the attention. A change in wording here, a rise in the unit there, and the overall cost picture for taking or defending a civil case shifts again. This is a Scotland-made legal change with very real consequences for people using the courts this autumn. Anyone handling civil litigation in Scotland now has a date to mark: from 10 October 2026, the rules are tighter, the unit is higher, and the cost of getting to the end of a case is a little clearer and, in some instances, a little dearer.