Free Traffic Legal Advice

If the judge agrees that the claimant has acted unreasonably, you can claim additional costs. So, you may as well prepare a costs list of your time spent on this at £19/hour plus any incidentals.

Costs are generally very limited in the small claims track, as b789 highlights (this works both ways, so also serves as a bit of protection for you, in that you won't be required to pay eye-watering legal fees if you were unlucky enough to lose). The bar for 'unreasonable' behaviour is high, so you'd be lucky to get costs for your time, but there's little harm in asking, although you may want to briefly consider why you believe their behaviour to be unreasonable, so that you can articulate this.

Hi all,

As an update, I attended the court case this morning. The legal firm didn't send any representatives so it was just me and the judge. The judge gave me a few minutes to give a summary of my defence then took 30 mins to consider the case whilst I sat outside. I was invited back in and the judge told me he struck out the case and gave his rationale. His rationale focused on the fact the PoC was deficient and the fact the contract provided in the claimant's WS was not valid (based on evidence I submitted in my WS).

I asked for £95 attendance costs and he granted this but as for the other costs (time spent on this matter that I had broken down into sections), he did not agree that the claimants behaved unreasonably. Also, not sure if I missed this but to claim other costs he said a statement of costs should have been filed so even if he agreed the claimaint was unreasonable he could not award them without this.

Overall, I think I could have articulated my defence better but a result is a result!

Thanks for all the help. 

A win is a win. Well done for persevering.

Regarding the judgment, on what aspect of the contract did the judge find that it was not valid? Was there any mention of the redactions? Was there mention of the different entities that had signed the contract and whether it flowed from the landowner?

Did the judge make any other comments about the case or the presentation of it?

A win is a win. Well done for persevering.

Regarding the judgment, on what aspect of the contract did the judge find that it was not valid? Was there any mention of the redactions? Was there mention of the different entities that had signed the contract and whether it flowed from the landowner?

Did the judge make any other comments about the case or the presentation of it?

Thanks.

He wasn't very structured in the way he conveyed his decision so it was difficult to follow him at times. I did not want to interrupt (wasn't sure on what was the right etiquette) but he did extensively refer to the contract and the change in entities over the time period (in relation to the land) as one of the reasons he decided to strike the claim out. I don't know if this is because I explicitly called this out during my time to speak at the beginning too. He also referred to the PoC as "defunct" and that it lacked details. This was one of the other reasons for striking the claim out.

In terms of other comments from him, when I mentioned the other cases that I had attached (again in my opening at the start), he basically shot it down saying he would make his own judgement and that these wouldn't have a bearing (something along those lines). He did not refer to these after this point.

He did not make a comment on the presentation and I don't think he mentioned redactions. In relation to the £95 request of mine, he asked me what I do for a living (I guess asking me to justify this?) and I replied with: "I am the director of a wholesale company that has revenue in the low millions". He did not enquire any further.

One thing I'd do different if I find myself in this position again is taking a pen on the day to take notes. I would have probably been able to give more detail here had I done that.

Edit: Just to add something that might be interesting, I also met a chap who said he had been to court 5x over private parking tickets and won every single time. Today's session was his 6th court appearance.