After judgment has been given in a civil dispute in the UK, the judge will decide who is to pay the expenses or costs of the action. The general rule is that "costs follow the event" so that the successful party is entitled to seek an order that the unsuccessful party pay his or her costs.
The law of costs however is largely based on the presumption that the parties to a dispute are represented by solicitors. They will have a liability to their solicitor for the work done on their behalf in the case and are entitled to be indemnified for this by the losing party. What however if the winning party has not instructed a solicitor and has acted as a litigant in person. He will doubtless have spent many hours working on the case himself and is likely to have also incurred considerable other expenses. Can he claim for these?
The answer is that he can but the costs which can be claimed are limited. Under Rule 48(6) of the Civil Procedure Rules a litigant in person is entitled to payment of up to two-thirds of the amount which would have been allowed if he had been represented by a solicitor or barrister. On top of this he entitled to be reimbursed for his 'disbursements' (or money paid out in preparation and conducting the case).
The amount of costs allowed for the work carried out by a litigant in person will depend upon whether or not he can prove financial loss. If this is possible he must provide the court with written evidence to support the claim, supply a copy to the other side and will then receive an amount to compensate for the time reasonably spent on preparing the case.
If no financial loss can be proved the court will only award costs for what is considered a reasonable time at the rate set in the Costs Practice Direction. At present this is at an hourly rate of 9.25.
To determine the cost of time spent by a litigant in person the judge will look at the work which was done, whether it was necessary, and how much time was properly taken. The time taken will be compared with the time needed for a solicitor to do the same work and what that solicitors reasonable costs would have been. The total costs award must not exceed 2/3 of what a solicitor would have reasonably charged for the same work.
In addition to costs the litigant in person will be awarded payment of his disbursements. These are out of pocket expenses such as court fees, fares traveling to court, witness fees, and money necessarily and reasonably spent on bringing or defending the case. Disbursements will be paid in full providing they were actually incurred, it appeared reasonable at the time to incur them and they are of a reasonable amount.
There is a general common law rule that a litigant cannot benefit from the fault of another. This applies also to the law of costs and a litigant in person will not be allowed to profit from the work carried out by him on a case. However some if not particularly generous reimbursement for the cost and time taken will usually be allowed.