The High Court has ordered Regina Fitzpatrick to pay the Residential Tenancies Board’s legal costs after dismissing her statutory appeal, but declined to award costs to the landlord, who was joined as a notice party.
Mr Justice Garrett Simons delivered the costs ruling on 25 May 2023. The appeal had already been dismissed on all grounds in a written judgment delivered on 12 May. Fitzpatrick did not attend the appeal hearing or the later costs hearing. The court said she had sought an adjournment through a friend, but that request was refused for reasons set out in the earlier judgment. The appeal was heard in her absence so the court could consider any arguments in its favour.
The RTB sought its costs under section 169 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015. The judge said the Board had established its entitlement under the usual rule that an entirely successful party is ordinarily awarded costs. He found no reason in the appeal’s procedural history to depart from that position, noting that the case raised no point of law of general public importance and that the Board’s conduct had been reasonable.
The costs are to be adjudicated under Part 10 of the 2015 Act if the parties cannot agree, and measured on the basis of a half-day hearing. They include the written legal submissions for the substantive appeal and costs hearing, as well as the costs hearing itself. However, additional costs arising from the case being adjourned overnight on 2 May 2023, to give Fitzpatrick a final opportunity to participate, cannot be recovered. The judge said costs for a half-day hearing would already have been incurred before the adjournment application, which came less than a week before the hearing.
The landlord received no costs order. The judge said the RTB was the principal party defending its own decision and had addressed the appeal’s central issue: whether it had any function under the Equal Status Act 2000. The landlord’s submissions were brief, and it had not filed written submissions on the substance of the appeal. The judge concluded that the notice party had no useful additional role on that jurisdictional issue.
The substantive order dismissed the appeal under section 123 of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004.