I'm Claiming Costs, lol

[chocolatte]

Hi all, Now that I have won my claim for bank charges from the Abbey I have just submitted my claim to the court to ask for my costs...

My Address
The Court

18 May 2007

Dear Sir/Madam

Me Vs Abbey

I wish to inform the court that the claim as detailed above, in which I am the Claimant, has now been settled. The Defender paid the full amount claimed, namely £1350.44.
As such, no further action is necessary in respect of this claim.
However, I believe that the Defender has behaved unreasonably in their approach to defending this claim, not least because I believe the Defender had no intention of ever defending this claim at a hearing.
I also enclose a list of all cases of which I am aware in which Abbey Bank was the Defender. Every one of these cases was settled in full before a hearing despite a defence being entered by the Defender.
Further, in relation to my claim, the Defender failed to file any documents to the court, breaching the orders made by Sheriff Officer on 24 April 2007. Again this is typical of the Defender’s approach in other cases of which I am aware.
The Defender’s unreasonable approach in defending a claim it always intended to settle has directly incurred myself unnecessary costs as outlined in the attached list of costs, and therefore I respectfully request that the Court consider awarding these costs, or such costs as it deems appropriate, as outlined in the Civil Procedure Rules 27.14(2)(g):
(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 – (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.
Please accept my sincere apologies for the waste of the courts valuable time spent processing and managing this claim. I do wish to inform the court however, that the decision to enter into this litigation was not taken lightly, and that ample opportunity was given to the Defender to resolve this matter by way of negotiation before proceeding with this claim. Regretfully, all attempts at meaningful dialogue were either rebutted or ignored. A copy of this letter, with attachments, has been sent to the Defender.


Yours faithfully,

Me

The Court
Between

Me
And
Abbey Bank

1. 4 letters sent by 1st Class recorded delivery at £2 each to cover postage and stationary is £8
2. The total cost of preparing the document bundles for each claim in triplicate is £24.78.
- paper cost of £20.00 (500 sheets per pack)
- printer ink cost of £1.99 per cartridge x2 = £3.98
- travel cost in fuel to and from post office 1 mile each way at £0.40 per mile is £0.80.
3. Time spent in researching Consumer Law, preparing letters, document bundles and case notes from start to finnish, running to and from the courts submitting papers, from 15 January 2007 to 24 April 2007, is at least 40 hours. Total at £9.25 per hour is £370.00.
4. Loss of time at court hearing, 2 hours at £9.25 per hour is £18.50.
Fuel travelling to and from court 2miles each way at £0.40 per mile is £1.60.

TOTAL COSTS: £422.88.

I will let you all know how this goes, probably a wasted excersice as I feel that the court here is a bit behind when it comes to consumer law, I get the impression the most they deal with here are parking fines, and chavs steeling from the local shops, lol

[KnellyK]

Good Luck, there are several people here working on spreadsheets to do just the same when they win!

[chocolatte]

The court have sent back my Extract of Dismissal, so as far as they are concerned that's that and I should have claimed costs either before the case was dismissed or in court on the hearing date. Grrrr!

[rory32]

Annoying.

So are the court saying that if you are made an offer and you want costs on top of this you should still go ahead with your hearing?

[Sneaker]

Originally Posted by KnellyK

Good Luck, there are several people here working on spreadsheets to do just the same when they win!

The N260 claim calc in Vamp's Chambers could be suitable.

[chocolatte]

Originally Posted by Sneaker

The N260 claim calc in Vamp's Chambers could be suitable.

Is there one for Scotland?

[chocolatte]

Originally Posted by rory32

Annoying.

So are the court saying that if you are made an offer and you want costs on top of this you should still go ahead with your hearing?

I think so Rory, the jist I got was that I should have went to court and asked for the costs then, I can recall the claim, just searching through all the legal mumbo jumbo on the Scottish Courts Home Page site now.