VCS - DCBL - Own Space - 2 Claims - 1 CCJ

icy_fox

Post Hearing - TLDR

• The first hurdle of the CCJ set aside has been overcome.
  • CCJ Set Aside
  • Costs of £205 to be paid to me
    • £190 (£19 * 10 hours) for preparation
    • Application fee of £15 (lucky for the claimant!)
• Next steps
  • Court date still required for the first claim (I explained to the judge this situation and that I'm getting the extra DQ for that in ASAP).
• Lesson learned
  • Log the amount of time spent daily on preparing your application and working through this. It can really help with costs calculation and justification.

Post Hearing - Details

Today addressed the 2nd claim only [CLAIM-02-REF] (Duplicate claim of higher amount, resulting in a CCJ). The matter addressed was whether the CCJ should be set aside.

Almost straight after greetings and settling down, the set aside wasn’t even questioned. IIRC words to the effect of “of course" this 2nd reference will be set aside before we discussed at any length.

She indicated she disagreed with the claimants assertion of no costs, because it was unreasonable conduct and I have a strong prospect of success. I then had the opportunity to verbally summarise my claim & the full situation including: Defence & lease wording making no reference to their T&Cs, Timeframe (13 months +), duplicate claims & double legal intimidation, etc.

Costs

Fair to say that following my overview, the judge still agreed with her original stance regarding unreasonable conduct..

So then a question of which rules applied and how to calculate the costs:

• Hourly Rate
  • Having referenced CPR 27.14 (standard court costs) and 46.5 (unreasonable conduct), she confirmed they only apply during the full application stage. Unfortunately today's claim [CLAIM-02-REF] was still in a "pre-application" stage, meaning she could only reference CPR 13.3.
  • As such, only a max of £19 per hour could be charged at this time, even though I'd brought proof of daily rate which would've exceeded this.
  • I'd like to still re-review and confirm on this.
• Quantity of Hours
  • When calculating number of hours spent, I'd advised that I'd spent probably 3-4 hours most days between 09-13/09/2024 working on this.
  • She suggested applying 10 hours in total for hours spent, which I agreed with.
  • In truth I think I spent more time overall when considering the time spent writing & re-writing, gathering evidence, research, checking things with your wonderful selves, admin (phoning the courts, etc.).
  • A lesson learned here is to log the amount of time spent daily on preparing your application and working through this. It can really help later with costs calculation and justification.

So the final sum to be billed to the claimant is £205. £190 (10 hours x £19) for hours spent responding to the claim. Plus the £15 application fee.

One point to address vs the advice provided here is that I did not submit full costs (re. no. of hours) prior to attending, purely because once I'd clarified what I could here, it was already within 24 hours of the hearing (again, I'd originally learned of the hearing 3 days ago after travelling). That said, there is still at least one more hearing to come and I'll certainly be fully prepared for that!

Overall, a nice victory, assisted by the peoples champions that are the MSE forum experts. We may have won this battle - now we must win the war!

Le_Kirk

You write "final sum to be sent to the claimant" but I thought you won and you stated earlier that you were to be paid by the claimant.

icy_fox

I see the confusion, I meant that as "the final sum in the bill to be sent to the claimant", but have corrected the above in a slightly more succinct way.

Bazarius

oooh well done , that will hurt the claimant! 

The Judge must have used her discretion by applying a broad brush calculation of reasonable time spent on this  . In my opinion 10 hours is generous so I’d be very happy with that .  

The fight continues…. It’s DCBLegal … very high chance of discontinuing the claim . 

1505grandad

Still confused  -  do you mean to Defendant (you)  as you are claiming as follows  -  you state:-

"Costs of £205 to be paid to me

• • £190 (£19 * 10 hours) for preparation
  • Application fee of £15 (lucky for the claimant!)"

Coupon-mad

Nice. Well done you!

A very good example for us to take note that a CCJ can be set aside, even though the claim form went to your correct address.  There was still abuse and unreasonable conduct by filing 2 claims and getting a default CCJ in haste (in fact before the 19 days was up).

I don't understand her reasoning that this was pre-application stage (it wasn't! You had made a full application and this hearing was to hear it). Anyway, sooo happy the CCJ was set aside and you got over £200 in costs.

Very good!

Do you mean this second claim was completely struck out, as you say there will only be a hearing now about the first claim? Great if so!