The Court of Appeal has ruled that a car owner who had not renewed his MOT test can still recover credit hire costs after an accident.

Claimant Majid Ali had sought to recover more than £21,500 in credit hire costs after a lorry driver negligently hit his car and made it undriveable.

But the test certificate for Ali’s car had expired more than four months before the incident, and the county court ruled that he could not recover the hire charges, although he could recover the much smaller costs of recovery and repair.

That decision was upheld in the High Court, prompting a challenge at the Court of Appeal. In Ali v HSF Logistics Polska  Lord Justice Stuart-Smith ruled that the law should not be ‘unduly precious’ about minor infractions of the criminal law and their effect on a claim.

The judge said: ‘The defendant’s tort causes the claimant to be deprived of the use of an item of property, which causes inconvenience in the form of inability to use it for private transport. The fact that a claimant does not have a valid MOT certificate for the car does not alter the fact that they have been deprived of its use or the fact that this deprivation would have caused inconvenience but for the hiring.’

He added that allowing the recovery of the hire charges did not undermine the criminal law, but there would be a real risk that denying any recovery would be a disproportionate penalty. ‘Refusing a claim for just over £21,000 because of the absence of a valid MOT which exposes the claimant to a potential fine of £1,000 raises immediate and troubling questions of proportionality,’ added the judge.

The judge said it was an error to fail to appreciate the nature of a claim for ‘loss of use’. There was no doubt whatsoever that the defendant’s tort caused the claimant to suffer the inconvenience of being unable to satisfy his need for convenient transport. The absence of the valid MOT simply meant the claimant had been committing an offence and exposing himself to the risk of prosecution, not that the hire charges could not be recovered. The claimant’s appeal was upheld, with the decision backed by Lady Justice Nicola Davies and Lady Justice Macur.

Responding to the court’s ruling, claimant firm Bond Turner said it was a ‘sigh of relief’ for anyone who had a headlight out or a broken windscreen wiper.

It added: ‘Such cases were proportionately dealt with by the criminal law, and not by any sanction in their civil claim. The court stressed that its approach was a general one, which did not apply only in the case of driving without an MOT.'