QC and sheriff officers cash in as taxpayer gets £50,000 eviction bill

Council chiefs who initially offered a grandmother £30,000 for her flat spent £50,000 attempting to process her eviction a few months later.

Figures show that Glasgow City Council incurred a substantial legal bill forcing Margaret Jaconelli out of her two-bedroom apartment in Ardenlea Street, Dalmarnock.

They say the land on which her sandstone home sits is needed for a yard to service the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Last night, a senior council member said the enforcement action had been motivated "more by animosity than necessity".

James Dornan, leader of the SNP group on the local authority, said: "This family has been very harshly treated by this council.

"These figures confirm the decision to evict Mrs Jaconelli in such a hard-hearted manner was driven more by animosity than necessity.

"If they had dealt with Mrs Jaconelli in an appropriate manner, these costs would never have been run up.

"Instead, they chose to hound a grandmother out of her home at enormous public expense."

Mrs Jaconelli, 52, fought a long-running campaign against eviction.

The original offer of 30,000 remained in place until late last year, when the grandmother was making regular appearances at Glasgow Sheriff Court to try to prevent the compulsory purchase action.

On the day Mrs Jaconelli's lawyer failed to appear and she represented herself, the council was represented by Gerry Moynihan QC, who was being paid 4,112 to oppose her.

Only then did the council increase its offer to 90,000.

Subsequent court appearances saw Mr Moynihan claim further four-figure payments totalling 17,000.

At the same time, the council's chief solicitor was spending 182 working hours on the case, resulting in a total expenditure of 11,345.

And sheriff officers assigned to execute the eviction claimed a further 17,000.

Mrs Jaconelli, now homeless after the March action, said she was "gobsmacked" by the huge council bill.

She said: "If they had offered me a decent price for my home at the start, I would have gone away.

"Instead, they dug their heels in against me and began running up these enormous legal costs.

"Honestly, I am gobsmacked by the size of this bill."

A spokesman for the council said the costs were due, in part, to the prolonged process.

He said: "The vast majority of these costs would not have been incurred if the eviction order from the sheriff court had been properly observed."