The Supreme Court Costs Office
No.1 of 2005
English Churches Housing Group v Shine
7 April 2004
Court of Appeal (Keene and Wall LJJ)
The Claimant was at all times a secure tenant of a flat in East London owned by the Appellants, a charity and registered social landlord. He maintained that the premises had fallen into a serious state of disrepair, and called on the landlords to remedy the defects. When the landlords representatives inspected the flat they did find that it needed work done, but considered that this could not be done while the Defendant was in residence, and invited him to move to alternative accommodation for which they would pay whilst the repairs were being carried out.
The Claimant refused, and brought proceedings in the County Court for damages, initially put at £260,000, but subsequently increased, with permission from the Circuit Judge, to £5 million, without the necessity for any formal amendments, under Section 11 Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
There were many interlocutory hearings, most of them caused by the Claimant’s refusal to vacate the premises, despite an expert’s report that the repairs could not properly be carried out whilst he remained in occupation. On at least four of these occasions the Circuit Judge reserved the costs, though effectively the landlord had “won” that interlocutory round.
The claim was in fact struck out in December 2001 by the Circuit Judge, because the Claimant failed to attend the hearing before him. On appeal Hart J, in the Chancery Division, allowed the appeal and directed the matter to proceed. He awarded the costs of the hearing before him to the landlords, summarily assessed in the sum of £1,500.
The case then went to a trial lasting four days, at the end of which the Circuit Judge awarded the Claimant £19,000 damages. He refused to allow the landlords to set off the £1,500 assessed by Hart J against those damages, and awarded all the reserved costs to Mr Shine. No good reasons were given by the Circuit Judge for any of those decisions in relation to costs and set off.
On appeal the Court of Appeal, in addition to reducing the damages for reasons which do not concern this report, criticised the Circuit Judge for his conduct of the proceedings, and for not giving proper reasons for his decisions in relation to costs. They allowed set off of the £1,500, ordered by Hart J, and reversed the Circuit Judge’s costs orders in relation to four out of the five interlocutory hearings, awarding them to the landlords. However, an application on behalf of the landlords for additional costs, on the basis that Mr Shine had put the landlords solicitors to unnecessary work, was referred to the Costs Judge to deal with, adding the comment that such conduct is to be expected in housing cases, and large charities must expect to have their lawyers put to additional work in connection with such proceedings.