Claiming costs back from Arrow Global

[sunshinemike]

Arrow Global took me to court 2 months ago claiming I owed to TSB Bank. (through the County Court Business Centre)

I attended court, defended myself and the court ordered that Arrow Global be given 6 weeks to provide more evidence. This they did not do.

I have received 2 letters today - one from the court saying "The claimant having failed to comply with the order dated 4th September is ordered that the claim is struck out"

The other letter from Arrow Global says ""we confirm that due to an administrative oversight our claim against you has now been struck out"

I am pleased that I won the case (that should never have been bought in the first place) but I wondering if I am entitled to claim costs?

If I have lost I would have had to pay costs to Arrow Global so feel that as I have won, took several days of my time to prepare my own defence and had a default notice registered against me for several months that I should be entitled to some payment.

Is this the case? If so, how do I go about making the claim for costs?

Many thanks

Mike

[Amethyst]

'Administrative oversight' lol.... well, presumably they haven't indiciated that they intend to apply to set aside the strike ?

Was this small claims ? ( ie. the claims under £10k )

When you attended the hearing where the court ordered documents be produced were costs for the day discussed at all ? Is the order silent on costs ?

Small claims wise, some people do claim Wasted Costs after a strike or discontinuance but often it seems wiser to be pleased the debt is now dead than claim v limited LIP costs - so travel, day off work to attend a hearing, possibly £19 an hour LIP rate for reasonable preparation. It takes an application into court ( which itself carries a cost). Some have succeeded in asking the claimant directly by saying they will make an application to court for Wasted costs but there have been some cases where it's been refused and the application fee has also been lost. It can also encourage the claimant who's been struck to put more effort in to finding the documents and applying against the strike. Personally, for the sums it's likely to obtain, I think it's better to just walk away.

My views probably not wholly representative though so tagging R0b and pt2537 .

[R0b]

If the case was listed on the small claims track, probably not worth the hassle and potential risk of losing.

I'm curious if you objected to the judge adjourning the hearing to allow a further 6 weeks for Arrow to locate the evidence. What was the basis of the judge's decision for that to happen? I would have strongly objected given that Arrow would have had plenty of time to get their evidence in order and if it's not been produced on the day of the trial which is crucial to their claim, then it should be dismissed and/or struck out on the basis of an abuse of process.

At the very least you should be awarded costs of attending and maybe wasted costs but ideally you need to have raised it on the day. If the order doesn't specify that costs are to be paid then the rule is no order as to costs. The onus is on you to raise the issue of costs, not the court.