The Supreme Court Costs Office
No.36 of 2004
Re: Michaelides
28 November 2004
Mr Justice Blackburne (Sitting without Assessors)
The trustee in bankruptcy of Mr A S Michaelides sought an order for sale of a property jointly owned by him and his wife in Cuffley, Hertfordshire. Mrs M counterclaimed for a declaration that she had a beneficial interest, and that the sale should not proceed. There were protracted interlocutory proceedings regarding expert evidence and so forth, which ultimately ended with success for the trustee, and the view taken by the Registrar was that:
'It was as plain as a pikestaff that the application was resisted unreasonably on every ground. The applicant won hands down in the face of fierce and substantially unjustified opposition.'
Accordingly he awarded costs against Mrs M, whereupon the applicants solicitors presented a schedule seeking a total sum of £15,016.50 to be summarily assessed. The Bankruptcy Registrar considered that these costs were 'Lownds unreasonable' and then proceeded to go through the schedule item by item, reducing it to £9,350. He considered the bill to be still disproportionate, and therefore reduced it by a further £1,850 to £7,500. Both applicant and respondent appealed to the Judge.
The Judge held firstly that whilst in general permission to appeal was never required in relation to bankruptcy proceedings, that rule of practice did not apply to the summary assessment of costs in the course of bankruptcy proceedings.
He then considered the decision of the Registrar, and said this:
'16.The Registrar here plainly thought that the overall figure claimed, £15,016 was disproportionate. He then proceeded, as I understand it, to consider the individual items one by one. Having done that, as I understand it, he came to an overall figure of £9,340. He then reduced that amount by an across the board figure of some £1,850. For my part I do not think that is right. It seems to me that having come to the view that the overall figure was disproportionate, he then had to undertake the exercise summarised in the headnote from Lownds v Home Office, and come to a further figure. If he took the view that, having done that exercise, the overall figure was still disproportionate, it seems to me he would have to repeat the exercise. He did not do so.'
The Judge thereupon did the exercise himself, and came up with an overall figure of £8,000, which is what he awarded to the applicant.