Riddle v Parker Rhodes Hickmott Solicitors [2022] EWCOP 18

Oral application for permission to appeal orders regarding payment of costs for a deputy.

The appellant, Mr Riddle, had acted as a property and affairs deputy for a lady who had been in care and died in the first lockdown while there. He was not a solicitor and the appointment order made provision for him to receive fixed costs at the local authority rate. In 2020 he applied to amend that provision and for costs to be assessed by the SCCO. Hilder J rejected that application and also identified that there should be no application for reconsideration of the order. 

In this appeal, Mr Riddle argued that the volume of work and the "size and complexity" of the estate was not met by the local authority rates. The Vice-President, Hayden J, notes at [29] that while the rates “may barely” cover the appellant’s costs, it did not follow, ”axiomatically, that costs which run close to or even exceed the fixed fees constraint establish a basis for an SCCO assessment.” At [32] he also notes the rates are “not for the Court” [32] and explains that he has set out the framework and case law in some detail in the judgment as such cases rarely come before a Tier 3 judge. Permission to appeal was declined.  

Read the judgment on Bailii