The law says that you only have a set amount of time in which you can start a civil claim. The law calls this the ‘limitation period’. Courts are very strict about this deadline so it is important to know how much time you have got to start your claim.

There are different limitation periods for different types of cases, but for the cases we look at in this guide the usual limitation period will be either three or six years.

Time limits for cases about breach of contract

The limitation period for a contract claim is six years from the date the contract was broken. This means that you must start any court proceedings by the sixth anniversary of the event that broke the contract.

Sofia's story

Sofia works as a self-employed photographer. A few years ago, she was going through a bad patch and her accounts got in a muddle. She recently got herself together and discovered she had quite a few unpaid invoices between four and eight years old. She is still in time to claim for the ones under six years old, but not for the ones over six years old.

This will be the date when part or all of the contract was broken because one of the people or organisations involved failed or refused to do something that they committed to doing under the contract. This date may or may not be the same as the date when you first realise that the contract has been broken, perhaps because the damage only happens later.

Doris's story

Doris loves her garden but can no longer look after it herself as her health is poor. She has a gardener who comes once a week for an hour to mow her small lawn and tidy up the flower bed and for this she pays him £40 a month. Unfortunately, she’s been in hospital for last four months. When she gets home, she finds that her garden is completely overgrown and that her gardener stopped doing the gardening three months ago even though she had continued to pay him.

The ‘date of the breach of contract’ is the date when the gardener stopped gardening, not the date when Doris came out of hospital to discover her overgrown garden.

It is possible for a contract to change and shorten the limitation period for claims brought under that contract. However, the rules around this are complex. If you think that the contract under which you’re trying to start a case specifies a shorter limitation period, you need to get proper legal advice to assess the effectiveness of that term of the contract.

If you are under 18 or don’t have mental capacity at the time at which the contract was broken (for example if you were sectioned under the Mental Health Act, or if you have dementia) the time only starts once or if you have mental capacity again. So, if you regain your mental capacity you have six years from that point in which to start your claim. It is very important to note that if you gain capacity at any point following the contract being broken the limitation clock starts and cannot later be stopped, even if you lose capacity again.

If there has been fraud or deliberate concealment so that you discover the problem after 6 years have passed, you may have more time, but you would need to get proper legal advice first.

Time limits for cases about personal injury

The limitation period for a personal injury claim is three years from the date of the injury. This usually means that you must start any court proceedings by the third anniversary of your accident.

In some circumstances the limitation period is longer. So, if you only become aware of an injury much later then you have three years from the date you discovered, or could reasonably have discovered, the cause of your injury.

Alf's story

Alf retired when he was 65, and is now 72. For the last 2 or 3 years he has suffered shortness of breath, which he put down to age, and being overweight. Alf’s shortness of breath recently got worse and he developed a cough and so he visited his GP. Alf’s GP took a work history and after some tests told Alf that he has a lung disease caused by the dust from working in a pottery all his adult life. The GP also told him that it can take up to 15 years for symptoms to emerge. Although it is over 7 years since Alf was exposed to the dust, he is in time to claim as he has only just found out about it.

If you are injured under the age of 18, the clock only starts to run down when you turn 18, so you have until your 21st birthday to start court proceedings. (If you start a case when you are under 18, your parents or other adults have to bring proceedings on your behalf.)

Siv and Naz's story

Two years ago, Siv and his daughter Naz, who was 14 at the time, were passengers when they were in a car accident which was the driver’s fault. They both suffered fractures and took quite a while to recover. They didn’t start legal action at the time, as Naz was upset and her parents thought being inlvoved in a court case would make it worse for her. Now Naz is in the middle of her GCSEs. As a family, they decide that Siv will have to start his claim, because it is getting fairly close to the end of limitation period. Naz will leave hers and make her own decision about what she wants to do when she is 17 or 18. At that point she will still have three or four years in which to start her case, and she will be able to use a lot of Siv’s evidence about the accident in her own case.

If you are under 18 or you don’t have mental capacity at the time you are injured, for example if you were sectioned under the Mental Health Act, or if you have dementia, time only starts to run once or if you have mental capacity again. So, if you regain your mental capacity, you have three years from that point in which to start your claim.

Time limits for cases about negligence or breach of duty not involving personal injury

• The limitation period for negligence claims (that are not personal injury) is six years from the date of the negligent act.
• If you only become aware of the negligence much later, you have three years from the date you discovered, or could reasonably have discovered it.

If you are under 18 or you don’t have mental capacity at the time the problem occurs (for example, because you are sectioned under the Mental Health Act, or you have dementia) the time only starts once or if you have mental capacity again. So you have six years from the point you regain your mental capacity in which to start your claim. It is very important to note that if you gain capacity at any point following the negligent act (or the date at which you knew about it), the limitation clock starts and cannot be stopped later, even if you lose capacity again. 

Joe’s story

Eight years ago, Joe decided to have his bath replaced by a walk-in shower and fully tiled bathroom. A local firm did the work. Last week about ten tiles fell off the shower wall. Fortunately, no-one was hurt. Joe called in a plumber, who showed him that the water pipes for the shower had been incorrectly fitted, and there had been a slow leak behind the tiling which meant the whole wall needed replacing. Although the work was over six years ago, Joe will be in time to claim for negligence as he could not reasonably have discovered the problem earlier.

Summary of time limits

The primary limitation periods are:

1. Claims for breach of contract: 6 years from the date the contract was broken.
2. Claims for negligence not involving personal injury: six years from the date of the negligent act or 3 years from the date of knowledge of the negligent act, whichever is the later.
3. Claims for personal injury: 3 years from the date of injury or the date of knowledge of the injury or cause of action which caused the injury, whichever is later. (The court has discretion to ignore this time limit if it would be fair to do so).

If your claim falls within the primary limitation period then you will definitely be in time to start your claim.

It is important to bear in mind any of the exceptions to the time limits explained above, however if you believe these apply to you then you should get legal advice as soon as possible before deciding whether or not it’s worth starting your claim.

In most cases you only get one chance to start court proceedings. If you miss the deadline, your case will almost certainly not be possible. In very limited circumstances it might be possible to extend the deadline. If you are in this position, don’t delay, get legal advice. 

When you find out what the deadline is for your case, you may think it gives you plenty of time to prepare and start the court proceedings. But you may be surprised at how much work is involved to get your case ready in time. It is therefore really important to start to prepare your claim well before the time limit.

For example

• Before you start your claim, the court expects you to have gone through various processes with your opponent. These include communicating and exchanging information with them as well as negotiating in an effort to agree the result without going to court. See our guide to pre-action conduct and pre-action protocols. If you haven’t allowed enough time to work at trying to settle your claim before issuing proceedings, you are likely to find the court imposes sanctions on you.
• You will often need to give your evidence to the court at the same time you start your claim and, depending on the type of claim, it can take a long time to get it. Evidence can also be lost for all sorts of reasons so it is better to gather it as soon as you can. See our separate guide to the evidence needed to take someone to court. 
• It can be very difficult to identify the correct defendant (see our separate guide to identifying the correct defendent in a civil claim). If you have left it close to the deadline to start court proceedings, you may find out too late that you have got the wrong defendant, or that it would have been a good idea to include a second defendant.
• Once your claim has started, there is an automatic court timetable to follow. For many steps you might only have two or four weeks in which to carry out the task.  If you aren’t well prepared before you start the case proceedings, you may find it very difficult to manage to do this.
• The other side are far more likely to take you seriously if you start your case in good time and in an organised way.

Next steps

Now you know how long you have got to start your case and how much you need to do to prepare for it, you might be ready to move on to the next step. Have a look at the other guides in this series to help you. If you are close to the end of the limitation period try to get legal advice.

Breach of contract – a failure or refusal to carry out all or part of an agreed legal obligation, typically a failure to provide or pay for goods or services.

File – to submit or place a legal document or application in the court records. Also to upload a document to the online court.

Civil claim – a non-criminal legal case against an individual or a company for compensation and/or to assert a particular legal right.

Limitation period - a type of time limit. It refers to the amount of time you have got in which to start a civil claim.

Litigant in person – a person bringing or defending a claim without a solicitor or barrister.

Out of time - when you miss the deadline for starting court proceedings.

Personal injury – when you have suffered the sort of harm which leaves you with a physical or mental injury.

Pre action protocol - an official procedure explaining what you have to do before court proceedings start in some sorts of cases.

Primary limitation period – this refers to the basic three year (personal injury) and six-year time limits (contract and non-personal injury negligence).

Sanctions – the punitive action the court takes if somebody involved in the case fails to follow a rule or take a step in the proceedings that they’ve been ordered to take.

Serving the claim – formal delivery of your claim to the defendant once the case has been started.

Strike out – if the court strikes out your case it means that you can’t carry on with it. It is ‘game over’. Sometimes the court might just strike out part of your case. In this situation you can only carry on with the bit that is left.

Time limit - a phrase you might hear as an alternative to ‘limitation period’. For example, ‘Are you within the time limit?’ Or ‘Are you out of time?’ It is also used to refer to the amount of time the court allows you to do something. For example, a court might ask you to produce photographs as evidence, and set a ‘time limit’ for doing this. Any time limits set by the court have to be taken very seriously. If you don’t follow them the court is likely to ‘strike out’ your case. Or you could find that the other side applies to the court to strike out your case if you haven’t done what the court has ordered you to do in the time allowed

The information in this guide applies to England and Wales only. The law may be different if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland. The law is complicated. We have simplified things in this guide. Please don’t rely on this guide as a complete statement of the law. We recommend you try and get advice from the sources we have suggested.

The cases we refer to are not always real but show a typical situation. We have included them to help you think about how to deal with your own situation.

Acknowledgements

This guide was produced by Law for Life's Advicenow project. We would like to thank everyone who provided feedback on the guide and esepcially editorial teams at Thomson Reuters who kindly peer reviewed this updated version. This version of the guide was updated thanks to funding from the Ministry of Justice.