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The claimant, for whom DCB Legal were acting.

Oops. I thought my Application was against DCBL, coz it was their paralegal who improperly engaged in the conduct of litigation. I didn't see how CEL could be held responsible for the incompetence of their legal reps. Does that mean my Application is now sunk without trace?

PS: Having said that, CEL are cited on the N244 as the Claimant.

I could, but there'd be no guarantee they would be awarded, right? In which case, it would make zero sense to pay £120 to pursue costs of £90.

To be clear, the post N279 action was taken on advice given here. The defendant would have been none the wiser but for that advice. The conclusion must be that, unless the Application includes costs that greatly exceed the cost of the Application itself, then it's probably not worth pursuing the Claimant's legal reps for irregular conduct.

I don't think we have much choice but to withdraw the N244. Shame.

The Court is now requesting a fee of £120. The N244 Application is for costs against DCBLegal of £95.

Unfortunately, that doesn't make any economic sense, unless the defendant is also awarded costs - which I somehow doubt.

Waste of time & money pursuing this any further? Looks like they get away with it.

Withdraw N244 Application?

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.