Free Traffic Legal Advice

That's what I thought.

 

From:
enquiries.bromley.countycourt@justice.gov.uk
To:
Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx
Cc:laurent@dcblegal.co.uk,

Thu, 18 Dec at 15:22

Good afternoon,

Thank you for your email dated 08/12/2025. This along with the case file was referred to the Judge for further directions. Please see the Judge’s comments below.

'Defendant needs to make formal application on form N244.'


Kind Regards,

Miss Hadia Hanif
Civil Back Office
The County Court at Bromley

https://ibb.co/Zks9Gt4

What is:

(b) Liberty to apply.

?

Sorry, back again.

OK, so I tried to amalgamate your draft letters to the court posted at #141 and 144 into a single letter, and it's fairly clear to me from those drafts that the only costs I can claim appear to relate exclusively to post-discontinuance time spent. But as already advised, that was all my time - not the defendant's - which you have told me cannot be claimed.

The defendant spent approx. 4-5hrs of her time on this claim, but that was all pre-discontinuance. If she cannot claim pre-discontinuance time, doesn't that remove the raison d'etre for the letter to the court? The complaint to the SRA is looking like the only valid option available to us in this case - unless you can explicitly confirm that pre-discontinuance costs can be claimed.

I'm not sure how DCB Legal can be held liable for those costs, and I don't want to submit a fraudulent claim just to make a point about their non-compliance and ignorance of process.

OK, thx.

Again, can it go out from my email account but with her typed name as the signature?

or ...

Should I prepare the correspondence for her to send from her email a/c?

If only I could claim for your and my time too 

Sorry, but I just can't reconcile what appears to be a direct conflict in your advice. In comment #130, you said:

Only the defendant can claim costs. Any request for costs must be made by the defendant and can only relate to their own time.

In comment #144, you then list a schedule of costs for time that I spent on behalf of the defendant, and for which you already said she cannot claim. It was my time, not hers, although she has spent other time defending this claim that you haven't listed.

For example, she prepared a bullet-point list of the facts surrounding the circumstances of the alleged infraction of the PPC's Ts&Cs - twice in fact, cos the first one was lost when Pepipoo went AWOL. She also returned to the scene of the 'crime' twice to obtain pictures of the signage for the same reason. She also spent time answering my questions whenever you posed a question that I couldn't answer without asking her, etc. Some of it is a matter of record on WhatsApp. But none of that time relates directly to dealing with DCBL. All of that was done by me.

Under those circumstances, does she have a claim for costs? IOW, can she claim for all the other stuff that predates my communications with Lauren Travis/DCBL? If not, then we will have to forgo the claim for costs and just make this a complaint about process, no? 

Thx mate, and hopefully this link will take you straight to the redacted N279:

https://ibb.co/NdTdwzcC