Failure to give estimate

Garbutt and another v Edwards and another [2005] EWCA Civ 1206

The issue which arose on this appeal, was one of considerable professional interest and importance: can a paying party claim that his liability to the receiving party under an order for the payment of costs is discharged, or that it should be reduced, if the solicitor for the receiving party has failed to give to his client an estimate of costs in accordance with the Solicitors Costs Information and Client Care Code (‘the Code’) as required by the Solicitors’ Practice Rules? It was necessary to examine the legislative framework for the Code to answer this question. Two fundamental principles in the field of costs must be borne in mind when determining the role in the system to be accorded to failures of the receiving party’s solicitors to provide a costs estimate: these are the indemnity principle and the special status of the solicitors’ certificate of accuracy attached to a bill of costs.