NatWest Business Northampton

[FreddyD]

Hi everybody, this is my first posting and I hope you will be able to give me some help.
Initial Info: I owned and ran a Pub under the umbrella of a limited company. I sold the Pub at the end of last year, and when someone told me that companies did not come under the remit of the OFT test case, I decided to claim my bank charges from NatWest Business centre following the advice on This Is Money website.
The Story so far: I worked out my charges amounts from statements and accounts, using the This Is Money spreadsheet, calculated I was owed almost £4,500 and with interest this amounted to just over £5,000. I sent the first letter to my Northampton branch with the schedule in January and (no response) sent the second letter demanding my money. I had a reply from Customer Response Services Unit saying they would respond in 6 -7 weeks. So mid February I issued a claim through Money Claim Online (but didn’t realise I should have sent the claim schedule by post as well) so my Particulars of claim read:
I am asking for a refund of the bank charges
which have been levied from my business bank
account over the last 4 years. I understand
that the regime of fees which have been
applied to my account in relation to direct
debit refusals, exceeding overdraft limits
and so forth are unlawful at Common Law and
are considered to be unfair by the OFT. I
believe these excessive charges had a direct
affect on my business cash-flow and profit
and loss balances, resulting ultimately in
me
having to sell my business.
The claimant claims interest under section
69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at the rate
of 8% a year from 02/03/2004 to 18/02/2008
of £596.70 and also interest at the same
rate up to the date of judgment or earlier
payment at a daily rate of £1.11
The bank solicitors say they are going to defend the claim. I have received copies of their defence but am still awaiting the Northampton County Court allocation questionnaire.
The first defence letter dated 4th March asks for a stay pending the OFT test case. The court responded, Without Hearing, ordering 1) that the claim should be stayed pending the test case & 2) Liberty to apply with an extension.
On the 5th March I received another set of copies from their solicitors saying they had filed the wrong defence due to an administrative error, and they had notified the court of the correct defence and a request for further information, plus could they have the wrong defence document back again.
I am still awaiting the Courts Allocation Questionnaire at the moment.
Although I have already issued the Claim, but without the Schedule, is it too late to reduce the claim figure (about £70.00) to bring my claim under the remit of the Small Claims Court Fast track procedure?
I am very nervous about having to go to court and defend this in front of their solicitors.

Any comments or advice at this stage would be greatly appreciated.

[steven4064]

Hi Freddy

Welcome to CAG and to the NatWest forum. I shouldn't wory too much about the amount of the claim - the £5000 is not an absolute limit (see the HMCS leaflet EX-307 page 2. Also, you should ask the court not to grant the stay (normally the notice gives you the opprotunity to object) on the basis that the OFT case is based on the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 which do not apply to you as you are not a consumer, but a company.

When you get the AQ, put some stuff in section G (or H if it's a N150) that says this is a simple case based only on a matter of fact (that the charges are penalties because they are more than the bank's costs) and is only just over £5000 therefore should be allocated to the SCT. We'll help with this - there is standard wording. Also ask for full disclosure - again there is standard wording.

Nat West will run a mile at this point - it will not get to court.

In the meantime, if you haven't already, send a copy of your schedule of charges to the court. Don't forget tto put your claim number on.

[FreddyD]

Thanks so far, I will send a copy of the schedule to the court along with my request to cancel the stay as suggested. I calculated the schedule using an excel worksheet, and when I opened it today to print, it has updated all the interest calculations to provide a larger figure than I originally sent. Should I send a copy of the original schedule or the updated one with the re-calculated interest to the court?

[steven4064]

The original

[FreddyD]

have sent the request & schedule on the 14th March, but not heard anything or had the AQ yet. Should I give it more time or call the court, do you think?

[steven4064]

It can take several weeks for the court to send the AQ forms out, depending on how busy they are

[FreddyD]

Hi again,
Have finally received a reply from the court, but looks like the Bank has got it's delay tactics to a tee. Attached is a scanned OCR document of the letter.
Any suggestions as to what to do next??
Cheers

[steven4064]

Not much you can do about that - this is standard Northampton polucy - another reason not to use MCOL

[FreddyD]

Have been thinking about my last letter, and need to ask a question.
Do you know if the stay of proceedings is granted solely on the filed defence of the Defendant or is it applied as a blanket policy to all claimants cases at Northampton court??
I ask this, because after Cobbetts had entered their first defence, they sent me a letter the following day retracting their OFT case defence and entering a different defence with no mention of the OFT case. If they have retracted their request for a stay due to the OFT case, does this not invalidate the stay of proceedings for my Claim? allowing me to get the stay revoked and my case moved to a local court?
I have attached transcripts of their two letters for information.
Having looked through many threads on this site, the second defence appears to be Cobbetts standard letter and info request.
I also remember seeing a thread about an argument that the court should throw out the banks defence on the grounds that the banks are abusing the judicial process as no case has yet come to court, but I cannot find that thread again. Any idea where it is?
Many thanks for your thoughts on this.

[steven4064]

Northampton stay all bank charges cases (including business ones) as a matter of policy

[zootscoot]

Thread moved to new forum for business claims