The benefits of an early offer of compromise in restrictive covenant proceedings were again shown in Manderson v Smith Anor (Costs) S ECI 2020 03378 when Efthim AsJ upheld an offer to walk away as being a genuine compromise in proceedings concerning a fence that was said to have constituted a breach of a restrictive covenant:

His Honour held that the earliest of three offers of compromise would be effective:

21 In my view, indemnity costs should be awarded to the defendants from the date of the first offer of compromise. The plaintiff commenced the proceedings knowing that he had a fence on his own property encroached the boundary line by a much greater distance than the defendants’ fence and knowing that all other residents had fences. He should also have known that the defendants’ fence was at best only six centimetres over the boundary line.
22 The first offer of compromise should have been accepted and, in my view, it was unreasonable that it was not. The defendants have come to the Court with clean hands, they obtained a permit from the local council to erect the fence. It is clear from the evidence of Ms Smith that the defendants were concerned about the native flora. They were put to a great deal of expense in defending this claim which they should never have had to do.

The decision summarises the criteria the court will consider when determining whether or not to order indemnity costs against an unsuccessful party:

(a) the stage of the proceeding at which the offer was received;
(b) the time allowed to the offeree to consider the offer;
(c) the extent of the compromise offered;
(d) the offeree’s prospects of success, assessed as at the date of the offer;
(e) the clarity with which the terms of the offer were expressed; and
(f) whether the offer foreshadowed an application for an indemnity costs in the event of the offeree’s rejecting it.

A more detailed discussion of Calderbank offers is discussed in the following notes at page 81: