Just a short note on Leeds cc v Price (LSC intervening) [2011] EWHC 849 (QB) because it isn’t a housing case at all. It’s the costs fall-out from Price v Leeds CC [2006] UKHL 10; [2006] 2 A.C. 465 (the other case with Kay v LB Lambeth). You’ll remember that Leeds won.
After the case, Leeds got a certificate from the Clerk and Taxing Officer of the Judicial Office of the House of Lords for a costs order in the sum of £84,138.94. They then successfully applied to register that certificate as an order of the High Court, with the result (Leeds said) that the LSC should pay up. HHJ Behrens, sitting as a deputy judge, made the relevant order.
The LSC argued that the High Court registration was improper in that they had not been given notice of the application. They applied to set the order aside.
The application was allowed. HHJ Behrens – after a review of the relevant costs law – held that that no order had actually ever been made requiring the LSC to pay the costs of the appeal.
When Leeds had obtained the order from the High Court (indeed, from HHJ Behrens) the application had been made without notice. It “did not contain full and frank disclosure by the Council” in that Leeds and the LSC were engaged in detailed correspondence about the matter, none of which was put before the Judge. In those circumstances, the order had to be set aside, with (provisionally) an order for costs against Leeds.
Ouch.