Court case costs

Hi,

Three years ago I won a court case against a bank to recoup mony  I put down as a deposit for an apartment which was nver completed as the developer went bust.

The bank appealed and won the case. I appealed the case and won but the solicitor now is demanding over 53% of the winnings as legal and "other costs". I had a contract with him that says I would pay him 20% of the winnings for legal fees which is OK but its the "other costs"  which are more substantive than the legal that I am contesting. There   was no mention of other costs by my solicitor before the trial  and I believe  they are excessive. Also I thought that the winning party in any spanish court case would always have the costs paid by the defendent.

Does anyone have any hepful comments on this matter>

Thank you

nadia01

Hello Nadia and welcome to EOS

There may be 2 angles to this situation.

Who’s pocket is the so called ‘’winnings’’ in at the moment? There seems to be an unwritten law in Spain ‘’whoever has the money owns it’’ and the best of luck if it is not in your pocket.

Then there is the situation of what if any contract you have agreed with your Solicitor/Lawyer regarding fees and costs. Generally a contract should be legal and reasonable. Just because you signed a contract does not always make it legal and reasonable. The problem you may have here is that you will need to engage another Spanish lawyer to dispute the original contract if you think it is unfair and/or abusive, and Spanish lawyers rarely if ever will act against each other.

This is Spain not the UK. Best of luck.

Your believe that the winning party in any Spanish court case would always have the costs paid by the losing party is incorrect.  The Court decision can  mandate that the losing party pay the costs of the winning party but then again it may not do so.  You must check the Court decision to see whether the losing party was condemned to pay your legal costs.

If this was the case, your lawyer must submit their invoice to the Court who will collect the fees from the losing party.

Otherwise, each party gets to pay their own costs.  If you are in this situation your lawyer has to itemize for you the other costs in addition to the pure "legal fees".  These could include the costs of the procurador, the fees of experts appointed by you in the case, the Court fees.  Your lawyer should itemize them for you so that you are aware of exactly what costs are being deducted from your winnings.

Is it also true that there is another aspect to retrieval of monies to consider? I.e. award of interest backdated to date of deposit, which in some cases where judicial award of costs was not fully met ( I.e. in instances where elements of doubt still existed prior to SC doctrine being achieved) should act as some form of additional compensation to offset the claimants costs?

Which begs the question have backdated interests been fought for in this specific case?