PD 27A in 2026: what actually changed for family court bundles
If you prepare bundles for the Family Court, the ground moved under you on 2 March 2026. The amended Practice Direction 27A is the biggest rewrite of bundle rules in a decade, and courts are already applying it strictly. Having filed bundles under both regimes, here is what has actually changed, and what still catches people out.
E-bundles are now the default
The starting point has flipped. Electronic bundles are the norm, and the format specification is precise: the bundle must carry searchable text (so scanned documents need OCR before they go in), generated text should be in Arial or Times New Roman at 12 point or larger, the PDF should open at 100 per cent zoom, and images should not exceed 300dpi. A bundle of raw scans with no text layer is now a non-compliant bundle, however tidy its index.
Two numbering regimes, and mixing them up is the classic error
The amended PD draws a line through the middle of family work:
- Financial remedy bundles use consecutive Arabic page numbering, straight through.
- Everything else, including children proceedings, uses section-prefixed numbering in the Bates style: A1, A2, then B1, B2, with each section keeping its own sequence.
Index pages themselves are not paginated. If your bundling tool numbers the index, or applies one numbering style to every kind of family bundle, it is producing non-compliant output.
The 350-page cap has teeth
The bundle is limited to 350 pages unless the court has given permission for more, and that permission should be recorded in the preliminary documents. Within the bundle, individual documents now have their own limits unless the court directs otherwise: a case summary is limited to 6 pages, a statement of issues to 2, a chronology to 10, a care plan to 10, the essential reading list to a single page, a witness statement to 25 pages exclusive of exhibits, and an expert’s report to 40 pages including an executive summary of no more than 4 pages at the front.
Position statements have hard limits now
This is the change most advocates feel first. In financial remedy proceedings, position statements must not exceed 6 pages for a first appointment, 8 for any other interim hearing, 12 for an FDR and 15 for a final hearing, and they must not introduce any new factual allegations or evidence. They must be self-contained: no incorporating earlier position statements by reference, no exhibits, no extensive quotation.
In all other family proceedings the default limit is 3 pages, unless the court accepts the case is complex and directs a different maximum. A position statement is also now distinct from a skeleton argument, which is a separate document, and a fresh position statement is required for each hearing. Recycling last hearing’s document with an “update” paragraph is expressly not acceptable.
Documents that should not be in the bundle at all
The amended PD expands the categories of material that stay out unless the court directs otherwise: correspondence between legal representatives, social media and text message communications, voice notes, and photographs. The discipline the PD is enforcing is an old one: the bundle contains the documents relevant to the hearing, not the whole file.
The timetable is tighter
Work back from the hearing date: bundle contents are to be agreed 7 working days before the hearing, the bundle filed and served 5 working days before, and the preliminary documents lodged by 11am on the working day before. In public law proceedings, case summaries and position statements are to be produced on the standard templates. And for subsequent hearings, do not simply relodge: superseded documents come out, and new documents go in at the end of their section with the numbering continuing.
What this means in practice
Most bundle rejections I see now come down to four things: no searchable text layer, the wrong numbering style for the proceedings, oversized position statements, and blown deadlines. All four are checkable before you file. That is why I built automated PD 27A checks into Court Bundle Builder, the free bundle tool I maintain: it applies the current numbering conventions, watches the page limits, calculates the lodging timetable from your hearing date, and flags document types the PD excludes. It is free, it runs in your browser, and your papers never leave your device.
Whatever tool you use, read the amended PD itself at least once. It is the rare practice direction that rewards ten minutes of attention with fewer rejected bundles and calmer hearing mornings.
Free, no account needed, and your files never leave your device.
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