The Court of Appeal has ordered three borrowers to pay Pepper Finance Corporation (Ireland) DAC’s costs after dismissing their appeals over whether their loans were “housing loans” under the Consumer Credit Act 1995.
The costs ruling was delivered by Ms Justice Butler on 5 July 2024, with Justices Costello and Noonan agreeing. The appeals had been dismissed in a judgment delivered on 18 April 2024. That earlier judgment indicated the court’s preliminary view that the lender should receive its appeal costs, while inviting submissions on whether a different order should be made.
The appeals concerned the Act’s requirement for a lender to give written notice of a 10-day cooling-off period. The parties agreed that the notice required by section 30(2) had not been provided. The borrowers argued that, unless their loans qualified as “housing loans” under section 2, the loans would be unenforceable. The lender maintained that the loans were housing loans and that section 30(2) therefore did not apply.
The issue arose after the lender applied to the High Court to strike out the proceedings, arguing they disclosed no reasonable cause of action and were bound to fail. The High Court decided the statutory interpretation issue against the borrowers, as did the Court of Appeal.
In their costs submissions, the borrowers sought no costs order. They said the appeals raised a serious legal question, had been pursued in good faith, and that the lender’s strike-out application came late, after the cases had been listed for trial. The lender sought costs under the usual rule that the successful party in civil proceedings is entitled to costs unless the circumstances justify a different order.
Justice Butler ruled that the seriousness of the issue and the borrowers’ good-faith conduct did not, by themselves, justify departing from that usual rule. She also found that the late timing of the lender’s application did not prevent it from receiving costs; the earlier judgment had held the application permissible under Order 19, rule 28.
The court adopted the cost arrangement proposed in its April judgment: the lender is to receive the costs of the paperwork for each appeal, with one set of costs for the written legal submissions and hearing, taxed jointly and severally against all three appellants. The ruling clarified that the costs following the strike-out order do not include trial costs.