Interest On Money

[Speedy75]

Before i contact my solicitor, could somebody please tell me if this sounds about right.

 

We went through a housing disrepair claim and to cut a long story short, we received £5000 in damages.

 

This was paid to our solicitor around May 2014, but we were not allowed the money until the landlord payed costs to our solicitor.

 

We have just heard from our solicitor and we were always told we would get interest on the money.

 

We have received a cheque for 5048, is £48 interest about right? It would be 2 years next month that the solicitor as held the money.

 

Thank you

[AndyOrch]

Simple interest is usually set at 8% when using the Courts (section 69)...so it all depends at what rate your Solicitor has applied Speedy.

 

Regards

Andy

[Speedy75]

Thanks for replying, but i am still confused.

 

The case was Legal Aid funded and the Landlord agreed through a Tomlin Order to pay damages at a certain date, which he did.

 

The solicitor would not let us have the money until the landlord paid costs.

 

When the Landlord paid the money under the Tomlin Order, should the solicitor have given that to the Legal Aid agency and then the Legal Aid agency send the money?

 

Obviously i am very happy to receive the damages, but wanted to maker sure that the amount of interest was right.

 

Thanks

[AndyOrch]

It all depends whether the costs incurred interest...normally not...only the amount claimed ?

[Speedy75]

Just an update. I contacted the solicitor and the interest on the damages is 0.5%.

 

Going to leave it at that.

 

Thanks again

[AndyOrch]

Under Section 35A Senior Courts Act 1981, the Court has a general discretion in respect of interest to the date of judgment. It normally regards 1% over bank base as being an appropriate rate to reflect the cost of borrowing money. In the present exceptional circumstances where the Bank of England base was only 0.5%, the Court recognised that the cost of borrowing money was greater than this and would therefore normally award 2% over the base rate.

 

As regards the interest rate to be applied after judgment, Section 17 of the Judgment Act, 1838 currently sets the rate of interest at 8%. The Judge applied this rate to the judgment award to run from the date of judgment until the date of payment.

 

 

 

http://www.muckle-llp.com/enews/interest-rate-on-damages-claims/

[steampowered]

The defendant would normally have to pay 8% interest on damages due until the date he pays your solicitor.

 

Once that money is in your solicitor's hands, you'll only get whatever interest the solicitor actually receives on his/her client bank account, this is basically just a current account so may well only be 0.5%.