An overview of Cost recoverable as a Litigant in Person, Costs in the Small Track and Fast Track

As a Litigant in person you may be entitled under the Litigant in Persons Cost and Expenses Act to recover costs in proceedings brought by you matter.  At the present time the amount that you can claim is £19.00 per hour (it was recently increased from £18.00 per hour ) and I would suggest you to go to

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/benchmarks/costs-and-litigants-in-person/5038419.fullarticle which is a very useful and helpful article on what you will need to prove to be able to successfully charge for your time in progressing your claim.

With regards to the cost implications of issuing proceedings, below is an overview of the Court’s present position in relation to costs of bringing proceedings in England and Wales.

Dependent upon the value of the claim (if the value of the claim is £10,000 or less) then your claim would be issued in the small claims track.  As a rule costs are  limited in cases brought in the small claims track.  To ensure that you have a full understanding of the costs implications of bringing a case in this track, below are the relevant rules applicable to you as set out in Civil Procedure Rule 27.14 and Part 45:-

CPR 27.14     Costs on the small claims track

(2)     The court may not order a party to pay a sum to another party in respect of that other party's costs, fees and expenses, including those relating to an appeal, except –

(a)     the fixed costs attributable to issuing the claim which –

(i)     are payable under Part 45; (this will only apply to you if the matter is placed in the fast track)

(ii)     would be payable under Part 45 if that Part applied to the claim; (this will only apply to you if the matter is placed in the fast track)

(b)     in proceedings which included a claim for an injunction or an order for specific performance a sum not exceeding the amount specified in Practice Direction 27 for legal advice and assistance relating to that claim;

(c)     any court fees paid by that other party;

(d)     expenses which a party or witness has reasonably incurred in travelling to and from a hearing or in staying away from home for the purposes of attending a hearing;

(e)     a sum not exceeding the amount specified in Practice Direction 27 for any loss of earnings or loss of leave by a party or witness due to attending a hearing or to staying away from home for the purposes of attending a hearing;

(f)     a sum not exceeding the amount specified in Practice Direction 27 for an expert's fees;

(g)     such further costs as the court may assess by the summary procedure and order to be paid by a party who has behaved unreasonably

Under the CPR Part 27 the Courts have stated under that

7.2 The amount which a party may be ordered to pay under rule 27.14(2)(b)(for legal advice and assistance in claims including an injunction or specific performance) is a sum not exceeding £260.

7.3 The amounts which a party may be ordered to pay under rule 27.14(3)(c)(loss of earnings or loss of leave) and (d) (expert's fees) are:

1. for the loss of earnings or loss of leave of each party or witness due to attending a hearing or staying away from home for the purpose of attending a hearing, a sum not exceeding £95 per day for each person, and
2. for experts' fees, a sum not exceeding £750 for each expert.

The above also refers to the costs which would be payable by a  prospective Defendant in the event that he made a counterclaim.  In the event that your claim was unsuccessful then the costs payable by you would be limited to those as stated above.

Should the value of this matter be in excess of £10,000 then it is likely  the matter will be placed in the fast track and CPR 45 will apply.

Under CPR 45 the amount a fast track trial costs a court may award are set out as stated below:-

Value of claim	Fast track trial costs
No more than £3,000	£485
More than £3,000 but not more than £10,000	£690
More than £10,000 but not more than £15,000	£1,035
For proceedings issued on or after 6 April 2009, more than £15,000   The court must award the amount shown in the table unless  it decides not to award any fast track fixed trial costs, please note that the court may decide to apportion the amount awarded between parties to reflect their respective degrees of success on the issues in the trial.   The Court does have the power to award more or less in fast track trial costs The court may, if it considers it appropriate, award an additional amount to that set out in table 9 or a lesser amount. The court may exercise this powers in the following circumstances: Re:  litigant in person—if they are awarded their costs there are two different methods the court will use to determine the amount of the award. Which one depends on whether they can prove their financial loss: 1.  if they can—the court will award two-thirds of the amount that have been awarded had they not been a litigant in person. 2.  if they can not—the court will award an amount for time reasonably spent doing the work. This will be determined by applying a rate specified in the practice direction. Under Practice Direction 46.13 there is some good news in that (1)     Any costs orders made before a claim is allocated will not be affected by allocation. (2)     Where— (a)     claim is allocated to a track; and (b)     the court subsequently re-allocates that claim to a different track, then unless the court orders otherwise, any special rules about costs applying— (i)     to the first track, will apply to the claim up to the date of re-allocation; and (ii)     to the second track, will apply from the date of re-allocation. Written by Deborah Aloba of Affordable Law for You Limited This article is for information purposes.	£1,650