Credit Hire Case Law: The UK Tracker
This living tracker summarises every significant UK credit hire judgment in plain English, with citation, court, judgment date and what each decision settled. It is educational reporting of public judgments — it does not advise on individual claims. Tracker last updated: 07/08/2026.
§ 01The judgments
Each entry links to a plain-English summary with the citation, the court, the judgment date and a link to the public judgment where verified.
| Judgment | Case | Court | What it settled |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 1993 | Giles v Thompson (1993) | House of Lords | Credit hire agreements are not champertous; the model is lawful. |
| 11/05/2000 | Dimond v Lovell (2000) | House of Lords | Improperly executed regulated agreement unenforceable; non-impecunious claimants limited to the basic hire rate. |
| 04/12/2003 | Lagden v O'Connor (2003) | House of Lords | The impecunious claimant recovers the full credit hire rate. |
| 17/06/2009 | Copley v Lawn (2009) | Court of Appeal | How intervention offers from the at-fault insurer affect recovery. |
| Nov 2011 | Pattni v First Leicester (2011) | Court of Appeal | How the basic hire rate is assessed and evidenced; interest on hire claims. |
| Mar 2014 | Zurich v Umerji (2014) | Court of Appeal | Non-disclosure of means can debar impecuniosity; hire may run until the claimant is put in funds. |
| 27/02/2015 | Stevens v Equity (2015) | Court of Appeal | The basic hire rate is the lowest reasonable mainstream rate for a comparable vehicle in the claimant's locality. |
| 2017 | McBride v UK Insurance (2017) | Court of Appeal | BHR comparators, nil-excess adjustment and prestige rate evidence. |
| May 2018 | Irving v Morgan Sindall (2018) | High Court (Queen's Bench Division) | The impecuniosity threshold: a claimant need not exhaust every resource. |
| Nov 2020 | Diriye v Bojaj (2020) | Court of Appeal | Impecuniosity must be pleaded and particularised; procedural consequences of failure. |
§ 02Which cases shaped UK credit hire law?
Three House of Lords decisions built the frame, and the Court of Appeal has been filling it in since. Giles v Thompson (1993) made the industry lawful; Dimond v Lovell (2000) set the recoverable measure for claimants who could have hired normally; Lagden v O'Connor (2003) created the impecuniosity exception that most modern disputes turn on.
§ 03What did the House of Lords decide about credit hire?
Three things across a decade: the arrangement is lawful (Giles, 1993); an unenforceable agreement recovers nothing and a non-impecunious claimant recovers only the basic hire rate (Dimond, 2000); an impecunious claimant recovers the full credit hire rate (Lagden, 2003). Everything since — the rate-evidence rules of Pattni, Stevens and McBride, and the pleading discipline of Umerji and Diriye — is machinery for applying those three holdings.
§ 04Sources, review and how current this tracker is
Case summaries are written from the public text of each decision (BAILII, the National Archives case-law service, or the official law reports), with the citation and judgment date stated on every entry and a link to the public judgment. No date, citation or holding is approximated. Statements about industry practice are reported as practice, distinguished from statements of law.
The tracker header shows the last update date, and each entry carries its own published and last-reviewed dates. New judgments are added as they are handed down; material changes are recorded in the update log below. Summaries report what courts decided; they do not apply the law to any individual reader's circumstances. Corrections can be reported via the contact route — they are acknowledged, not buried.
§ 05Update log
- 07/08/2026 — Tracker launched with the ten foundation authorities (Giles v Thompson through Diriye v Bojaj).
New judgments, summarised as they land
The Case Digest is a planned email briefing covering significant new credit hire judgments, drawn from this tracker. Subscription is not open yet; the page explains what it will carry and how it is written.