• The small claims track relates to claims worth no more than £5,000 (with exceptions in specific types of disputes).
• The fast track relates to those claims worth between £5,000 and £15,000 and likely to last no more than one day at trial (where a fairly standard procedure in terms of the Court directions were ordered before a trial date would take place relatively quickly).
• The multi track is for all other claim, that is to say those worth £15,000 or more or which would take longer than one day to be heard at trial.
  

Claims are allocated to their respective track once a Defendant files a defence at Court,  they be defended and once the Court has asked the parties to state what directions they require the Court to make to take a case to trial.

The general rule is the smaller the value of the claim the less a successful litigant can recover from his opponent in respect of his legal costs outlay.  In the Fast Track the rules realistically limited recovery of the costs of a party's representative attending at trial, even if that party was entirely successful.  Typically a Fast Track cost award would not cover the attendance by anybody but the barrister conducting the trial and even then the barrister's fees that were recoverable under the fast track regime might be much less than actually incurred.

With effect from 6th April 2009 the fast track limit is to increase from £15,000 to £25,000. Previously, where the value of the claim was between £10,000 and £15,000, the amount of fast track trial costs awarded was limited to £1,035. From 6th April 2009, in respect of any claim worth more than £15,000 but no more than £25,000, but not otherwise, there will be an increase in the amount of fast track trial costs which the Court may award to £1,650. However, for claims issued before 6th April 2009, where those are worth between £15,000 and £25,000 they would still be allocated to the multi track and thus avoid this restriction in trial costs recovery.

In practical terms care must therefore be taken to assess the likely financial value of the claim at the outset, especially where it is likely to fall below the new financial value of the fast track of £25,000, bearing in mind the limited costs recovery of attendance at trial. In particular the length of the trial should be considered because even if the financial value of the claim is less than £25,000 (but more than £5,000) then it is likely that a party will succeed in persuading the Court to allocate the claim to the multi track and not the fast track.

On the other hand, however, care must be taken not to inflate the value of any claim (or indeed the value of any counterclaim brought by a Defendant, which also must be considered) as even if as a consequence of an assertion that the claim is worth more than £25,000 and is allocated to the multi track, if the Court subsequently awards a Claimant less than this at trial (so that with hindsight the claim ought to have actually been allocated to the fast track) then the Court may still limit the costs of a successful party as a result.

Bearing in mind the costs recovery regime it is very important to consider carefully with your solicitor the real likely value of a claim and assess it objectively.  How the Court will approach this when allocating it to the appropriate track will clearly impact on the trial costs that can be recovered even if a party is wholly successful.