We all agree that costs applications, and costs orders, are becoming more prevalent in Children Act as well as financial remedy proceedings.  Public policy certainly seems to favour the use of costs orders as a way of ensuring that litigation is proportionate and reasonable.

In this episode we are assisted by HHJ Reardon (who sits in East London Family Court and the CFC hearing both Children Act and Financial Remedy cases) and Laura Moys (barrister at 1 KBW) talk us through costs orders in respect of Children Act and Financial Remedy cases.

We discuss LSPO including:

·      HHJ Reardon reminds us (in the context of ever increasing interest rates) of the provision in Rubin V Rubin that:

viii) If a litigation loan is offered at a very high rate of interest it would be unlikely to be reasonable to expect the applicant to take it unless the respondent offered an undertaking to meet that interest, if the court later considered it just so to order.

·      What happens in second LSPO applications; and

·      LSPO in Children Act proceedings, including the need for equality of arms in accordance with BC v DE (Rev 1) [2016] EWHC 1806 (Fam) (21 July 2016).

We look at Costs orders in Children Act cases, and are reminded of the dicta in Re S (a Child), Re [2015] UKSC 20 (25 March 2015).  They discuss when a Court may order costs after a fact-finding hearings and refer to Re T (Children), Re [2012] UKSC 36 (25 July 2012).

Finally we discuss costs in Financial remedy proceedings, including:

·      the Court’s approach to making orders that cover legal costs in needs cases.  Laura refers us to Azarmi-Movafagh v Bassiri-Dezfouli [2021] EWCA Civ 1184 (30 July 2021);

·      When we should be dealing with costs arguments; and

·      General guidance about Wwhat is and is not reasonable, in order to consider what sort of positions may result in costs orders;

·      We are reminded that the Court can make costs awards where a party has refused to negotiate; JB v DB [2020] EWHC 2301 (Fam) (23 July 2020);