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
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:
- 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
- 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.
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£1,650
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