Peter Houghton

Costs

Peter is regularly instructed in costs disputes arising out of personal injury and industrial disease claims. He attends costs hearings in the Senior Courts Costs Office, the High Court and the County Courts.

He has considerable experience of detailed assessments of costs, acting for paying and receiving parties.

In addition he has litigated matters such as: wasted costs orders; the premature issue of proceedings; and the acceptance and effect of Part 36 offers and other offers.

Representative cases include:

• Detailed assessment for paying party. Questions of premature issue and relevance of Part 45 predictive costs regime. Peter secured preliminary ruling that proceedings were issued prematurely.
• Detailed assessment of Bill totalling more than £150,000, for paying party. Case settled satisfactorily following preliminary rulings that VAT was not recoverable at the current rate throughout and that costs were disproportionate.
• Detailed assessment in SCCO for paying party following fatal mesothelioma claim. Peter successfully argued for reduction in hourly rates to be allowed to prominent claimant asbestos litigation firm.
• Appeal to Circuit Judge from Regional Costs Judge over hourly rates allowed on detailed assessment in multi-track PI claim.

Selected Cases

Articles

• QOCS strikes again: Corstorphine v Liverpool City Council

News

• Michael Kent QC and Peter Houghton in the Supreme Court
• Heneghan: damages for asbestos-assoctiated lung cancer are divisible

Read more

Qualifications

• MA (Hons) (Cantab) (Double First Class)
• MPhil (Cantab) (Distinction)
• CPE (City) (Distinction)
• BVC (ICSL) (Outstanding)
• Lord Brougham and Lord Denning Scholarships (Lincoln’s)