What is a Planning Appeal Cost Award?
Planning applications can be very emotive and as such some clients wish for us to make a costs application against the Local Authority. The rules for a costs application are very specific and costs can only be successfully claimed in the event that a party i.e. the Council has behaved unreasonably and if this has been the case the appellant can only claim the costs of taking the appeal. In the event the claim is spurious, then it is highly likely that the Local Authority will make a counter claim against the appellant for handling the costs appeal. Also in making a claim for costs for householder appeals the Council then has a right to reply which it would not otherwise have to the substance of the appeal. Care therefore is necessary in deciding whether to make an application for costs or not.
To produce a costs application this involves detailing and providing evidence / information that specifically shows how the Council behaved unreasonably and resulted in the appellant incurring costs for doing so. During the process the Council will produce a response argument which will require a further document producing to overcome that response. There are costs of handling the costs application and these will need to be paid for in advance as this is not included as part of a written representation appeal.
The only exception to this is where we are recommending making a costs application being made and this is something our team assesses during the production of the appeal. If we believe there is merit due to our experience of handling such cases and are recommending such an application being made then our fee would be part of the costs application and charged to the Local Authority upon a successful outcome so we would act at risk on producing and managing that costs application. In all other cases if the client requires one to be made then it is a separate instruction for which a separate fee would need to be paid for in advance.
Please consider carefully if you would like to make a costs application and it might not be helpful for your appeal as a whole.