Procedure & practice
The Court of Appeal has deftly overcome a small claims track restricted costs hurdle which habitually presents itself in housing disrepair cases. Enter Lee v Birmingham City Council [2008] EWCA Civ 891, [2008] All ER (D) 423 (Jul). Hurdle? The tenant follows the pre-action protocol for housing disrepair cases; the landlord carries out the necessary repairs; and the tenant then makes a claim for damages but without seeking relief by way of specific performance because this is by now unnecessary; and the claim being for less than £5,000 without specific performance, it is allocated to the small claims track. You can guess the rest.
In the event of the landlord losing or settling, it argues that it is only liable for small claims costs and not for what would probably have been substantially higher costs if, with a specific performance claim, the proceedings had been allocated to the fast track.
It was held by the Court of Appeal that since the promulgation of the protocol, it is no longer the case that a claim is only made (for costs
