Helping my Mum against Abbey

[lee_s]

Hi All

Just would like some advice/pointers - or just some encouragement that I am going along the right lines.

Couple of years ago, I succesfully got £4K ish back from Abbey by following guidelines here on this website. My mum was widowed 2 yrs ago and is on minimum income ie: small pension and since reduction in income she started to go into the red which Abbey who have penalised her quite heavily. She's not in the best of health and has a habit of sticking her head in the sand but after a while of me nagging she finally agreed to start a new account elsewhere and let me help her reclaim her charges. Basically the small amount she had coming in was being swallowed up by Abbey charges.

Intial letters sent to Abbey and standard responses came back.
Got the info finally with details of charges and asked for these back.
Same std letter from Abbey saying they wouldn't refund, so CC claim started.
Luckily, she didn't have to pay the court for application due to low income. Claim was filed and Abbey responded with their standard defence.
Then they applied for a stay which was granted without any option to have our say.
We've now submitted the N244 and again due to her financial situation didn't have to pay a fee. We did it on the grounds of hardship + other arguments made here ie: human rights etc.
She's had a letter back from court saying a hearing has been set for 6th December and assumption is that a copy of her application and witness statement have been sent to Abbey as well. (she received a duplicate of her original application along with the notice of hearing)

My thoughts are the court know why we've applied to have stay lifted. Copies would have been sent to Abbey's Solicitors as well.

I have asked her to complete an income /expenditure sheet showing current financial status (with copies of pension details/benefits) to prove she is finding it hard to get by.

Do we need to submit anything further to the court prior to hearing ?

At what point would abbey start making an offer to settle. Is it prior to the full blown hearing - as opposed to lifting of a stay ?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

[Lula]

Hi, what did the notice of hearing say, is it an allocation hearing or a hearing for the lifting of the stay?

something you could try is an email to Ronan.coyle@ashurst.com, detailing everything re charges and that you mother is a real hardship case, only has pension to live on etc etc, attach the spreadsheet and invite them to make you an offer to settle

[lee_s]

Hi Lula,

It's a hearing to try and get the stay lifted, which is due next week.

Court hasn't put any directions on the hearing notice, but I assume that the application which we put together has been sent to Abbey. The application submitted by us was mainly around the hardship / ill health points but followed up with all the other reasons as well.

My mum has had no contact from Abbey apart from stock/standard letters, none specifically from legal side of Abbey.

At this point in time my mum would be open to an offer. This sort of thing plays havoc with her nerves. I am doing the leg work for her so she has nothing reallly to worry about but all the same its not nice for her.

Thanks Lula for your advice, I'll try emailing the contact above to see whether they're willing to play ball.
Lee

[Lula]

it is worth a shot, good luck

[lee_s]

Update - went to court today to get stay lifted. The judge said that before we started that she could not accept a request to lift the stay, but was quite irritated and annoyed that Abbey were pursuing the overdraft balance when it was clear that the amount was in dispute. She also said she couldn't believe that the account had been handed to a debt collection agency when the application for removal of stay was done on the basis of hardship. Wanted to know why Abbey thought this was a good move.
Abbey solicitor didn't look very comfortable at this point and blamed the internet for the problem of overloading Abbey with claims !!
None of the other arguments appeared to carry any weight ie: Human Rights, Balance of conveniece, UTCCR etc.
One result though is Abbey have been ordered to stop debt collection action and any further breach will give grounds to have stay lifted.
Tried the man at Ashursts and says he will look into it.
Fingers crossed because I want my Mum to have a worry free Christmas !

[zootscoot]

That is quite an achievement getting them to stop chasing the debt. Its very unlikely at this stage that stays will be lifted with the test case so soon.

It would also be good to report them to FSA for breach of the waiver conditions. They have an obligation to deal with claims of hardship promptly and chasing a disputed debt would certainly constitute a breach.

You could also go to the Ombudsman as they are still dealing with claims involving hardship.

All the best

Zoot

[lee_s]

Happy New Year all,

Just by way of a quick update, since the court's intervention the Abbey have stopped harassing my mum for repayment although it hasn't stopped them adding interest each month.

I took Lula's suggestion and contact Ashursts to see if they were willing to help especially as my mum is truly suffering financial hardship. After emails backwards and forwards, they have responded and said the Abbey doesn't believe my Mum is suffering financial hardship. They also said that Abbey were being sympathetic by not chasing the debt ... seemed to forget the fact that they had no choice ... the court ordered them to leave my Mum alone.

I am determined to get this fixed for my mum and will be pressing ahead with the Financial Ombudsman and by whatever other means available.

We gave a true breakdown of income and expenditure and it clearly shows she doesn't have enough to live on. (Pension only - essential expenditure like food, electric, council tax )

How they can determine she isn't suffering is beyond me. Wouldn't be so bad but they owe her 5 times what she owes them.

Can anyone please point me to the right place to progressing this with the financial ombudsman and how you go about coimplaining to FSA about the breach of the waiver ?

[lee_s]

Update:

I've registered a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman.

They've confirmed that banks are supposed to be looking at progressing hardship claims as it was a condition of the waiver agreement. They've agreed to take this up on our behalf. I've passed them all the details but in a nutshell :

Income Expenditure sheet showing finances
Fact that County Court waived all Court Fees due to little income
Copy of Letter that went to Abbey 5 months ago saying my mum was having problems due to charges, explaining ill health and little income and pleading to get charges back so she could clear overdraft
Copy of application to remove stay on grounds of financial hardship

Interesting enough, the bank is supposed to let people know that if they are not happy with their decision that you have the right to escalate this with the Financial Ombudsman as an independant adjudicator. Their letter said nothing of the sort so they've broken the rules on this point as well. I'll will be interested to see how they wriggle out of this one.

I'll keep you all posted.