A Confusing Approach to Basic Hire Rates - Richard Wilcock, Palmyra Chambers
18/13/15. On the 3rd March 2015, the Court of Appeal delivered the latest assault on credit hire litigation in Stevens v Equity Syndicate Management Ltd. The Judgment delivered by Kitchin LJ and approved by Jackson & Floyd LJs considered the somewhat thorny issue of the calculation of the Basic Hire Rate or 'BHR'.
The facts of the case itself were by no means unusual. Mr Stevens hired a replacement vehicle from Accident Exchange following a non-fault accident. The total claim for hire charges amounted to £5,764.80. The Claimant was not impecunious and the evidence before the Court on rate was not from the Defendant (where the burden lies) but from the Claimant himself in the form of a BHR rates report from APU. The range of comparators within the report established that the Accident Exchange rate was, at face value, within the market range. At first instance, the Judge wrongly concluded that the appropriate BHR was an...
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