Time limit for claiming costs?

[surfaceagentx20]

The succesful party has the right to claim costs following the tenor of the judgment. He must exercise that right on pronouncement and then suceed in obtaining an order for costs. If the succesful party kept his mouth shut and did not ask for nor obtain an order for costs, he has no order for costs against which time runs. Further he has no power to subsequently ask for costs post judgment. He must ask for costs on the day the court determines the issues between the parties because that is the day when the court is best placed to decide that question.

 

If you do not have an order which expressly states your opponent is to pay your costs you lack the right to proceed to have the court determine the amount of those costs.

 

x20

[surfaceagentx20]

As the claim and part-20 claim were both dismissed (I was the part-20 claimant), could either party be declared the winner and so be in a position to ask for costs to be assessed?

 

Yep. You won on the claim and your opponent won on the Part 20 claim. That puts either in a position to ask for costs and if granted, to advance argument as to the proportion of the costs of the one party the other should be order to pay.

 

x20

[surfaceagentx20]

'Wasted costs' properly called refer to those costs occasioned by the breach of duty and like shortcomings of a litigant's legal representative. Wasted costs should not be confused with the ordinary decision of the court running on from a finding as to the legal merits of the case whereby the costs of the succesful litigant are ordered to be paid by the unsuccesful litigant.

 

I don't know if a stickie exists but if not and in time, I would be happy to piece together an article of some sort. Costs as a topic in civil litigation probably takes up the largerst lump of text in the whole of the CPR and is for ever being tested and pulled hither and thither.

 

x20