The Online Procedure Rules became a working court process at noon on 29 September 2026, when the first digital service built under them opened for possession claims. The rules themselves came into force on 7 September, and the practice direction for possession proceedings took effect with the launch. In this first phase it reaches registered social landlords bringing claims about homes in England in the postcode areas served by the county courts at Bradford, Huddersfield and Wandsworth. Community landlords in Wales join through Caernarfon at noon on 15 October.
That is a narrow door, and most firms will not pass through it this year. If you act for a housing association with stock in those postcodes you are already inside it. Everyone else is looking at the template the next case types will follow, and at the committee that has said AI standards are its next job.
What the rules require
The obligation is blunt. Rule 17 says all online proceedings must be started using the digital service by providing the information required for that type of case and paying the fee. Rule 18 carries the same requirement into every later step taken by any person. Rule 3 puts the whole of an online case on a service designed and maintained by or on behalf of HMCTS. People without a solicitor keep a route in on paper, and the court uploads what they post.
Rule 4 sets the overriding objective, which is to promote access to justice by enabling disputes to be resolved using digital means quickly, efficiently, fairly and at proportionate cost. Rule 8 asks the parties to help the court achieve it, to take all reasonable and appropriate steps to settle, and to cooperate with active case management. Where neither the rules nor the practice direction yet cover a point, appeals and enforcement among them, the Civil Procedure Rules apply as modified.
What the practice direction changes at your desk
A claim starts when the landlord signs into a MyHMCTS account and works through a series of screens, typing some information in directly and uploading the tenancy agreement, any notice relied on and the rent statement. Once the process is complete, the claim cannot be changed without the court's permission. The checking therefore has to happen before the last screen, and that is where your review of anything drafted with AI assistance must sit.
Every claim, response, application, witness statement and expert report carries a statement of truth, and the practice direction reminds the reader that a false one may be a contempt punishable by up to two years in prison. Where rent arrears are relied on, an updated statement, verified the same way, goes up at least a day before the hearing. If software assembles that figure from your case management system, the person who signs is vouching for the software's arithmetic.
Two smaller provisions belong on your checklist. The court sends documents to an online party by email alert, and an alert counts as received when it is sent, so one that lands in a filtered folder or an unwatched inbox still starts the clock. Every hearing is officially recorded, and nobody may make a recording of their own without the court's permission, which matters to anyone whose note taking tool listens in.
The code of standards coming next
On 30 July the committee published its priorities, and the immediate one is a voluntary code of practice setting inclusion standards, technology and data standards, and standards for the responsible and ethical use of AI. It is aimed at all service providers in the digital justice system, including those involved in early dispute resolution, and the committee intends to write it with providers and users rather than at them.
Voluntary is not the same as ignorable. If your firm runs a client portal, a triage form that sorts enquiries before a fee earner reads them, or an early resolution service with software in it, you sit closer to the description of a digital justice service provider than the phrase suggests. A published standard becomes the yardstick a judge reaches for when a party says a system treated them badly, whether or not signing up to it was compulsory.
If you do possession work, check your clients' postcodes against the allocation checker inside MyHMCTS this week, and name the person who owns the account and watches its alerts. Put the review of every claim, rent statement and witness statement ahead of submission, because the service will not let you tidy it afterwards. Then write down the points in your client journey where software makes a decision or shapes an answer, so that when the code arrives you read it against a list rather than against memory.
The rules are free to read at legislation.gov.uk as the Online Procedure (Rules and Practice Directions) Rules 2026. GOV.UK carries the practice direction for possession proceedings, the committee's launch notice of 29 September 2026 and its statement of priorities of 30 July 2026.
If nobody has yet mapped where software already decides something in your firm, that is the first hour of work we do with a client: talk it through with us.
