It is the law that costs in PCN Appeals are rarely awarded. A party has to be frivolous, vexatious or wholly unreasonable. Mr Mustard hit the bar on an application he made, Barnet Council were found to be unreasonable but not wholly so. Not a great accolade though, merely unreasonable.
A friend is getting all of the 2021 costs case for his own learning and sharing them with Mr Mustard. Redbridge only suffered the one award due to their failure to properly consider the representations, a legal requirement.
The tribunal decision was a model of brevity and contained all that was required, the case number is 2200516219.
Mr Attalia applied for costs and that is reasonable given how his time had been wasted and given that 99% of motorists would have assumed the council knew what it was doing and paid up, which is the point of most rejections, councils might as well just write 'show us the money'. Luckily there are enough motorists who stand up and are counted to stop the PCN system becoming an even more unbalanced system. Costs were allowed but are a fleabite to the council who were themselves trying to obtain £130 by false pretences.
The end.
It seems to me that £19/hour is totally inadequate in this year of 2022. Just what previous century are London Tribunals working in ?
ReplyDeleteThe same one as the County Court, the litigant in person rate
ReplyDeleteSurely it should be an automatic grant IF the authority don't even bother turning up or submitting a defence against the costs claim...that would soon make them pay attention.
ReplyDelete