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Hi......heres my situation. I'd appreciate any assistance you can give.
In 1993 I opened a bank account with Bank of Scotland in my name only.
In 1999 the account was changed to a joint account with my partner.
In 2003 we closed the joint account.
BoS have just sent me my SAR statements for the entire 10 year period I banked with them.
The statements show that when the account was operated as a single account in my name, my bank charges totalled approx £1,400.
When it was operated as a joint account, my partner and I had £400 in bank charges.
I am no longer in touch with my ex whom I had the joint account with, which throws up the following question.
When I send my inital claim letter to the bank, can I request that I am making a claim against charges only for the period 1993 to 1999 ?
If they settle, can I request that any settlement cheque for this claim be made payable to me and me alone, as opposed to me and my ex ? Or are they likely to only ever settle for the latest names on the account i.e. mines and hers, regardless on the dates ?
Does anyone know if the BoS can settle via CHAPS funds transfer (for a smal fee no doubt) or is always done via cheque ?
Hiya Gav, My account is a joint account and at no point has anyone queried whether my wife was in agreement or indeed if she knew anything about what I have been doing claiming the charges back.
I think if you operated the account jointly and severally (either of you could sign cheques on your own) then you would be seen to have rights over the account on your own too to claim back your unlawful charges.
I have some experience of this.You can claim all of it in one claim (ie when it was a sole account and when it was a joint account) in your name on the claim form and your own signature only. However see my PS at bottom of this post regarding reclaiming charges that were made more than 6 years ago.
The only sticking point about signatures would be if the banks offer you a settlement out of court - they would probably ask for both signatures of acceptance to ensure that your ex never came back with another claim on the account. I don't know what the bank would do if you said that you did not know the whereabouts of your ex to be able to get the second signature. (I assume that if it went to Court and judgement was made against the bank, then the second signature would not come into it because the judge would order the bank to make payment to you as the claimant).
The bank will pay you with no mention of your ex on the payment. The bank in my case was a major high street bank and it was them who suggested a CHAPS payment rather than a cheque. They were also keen to make sure the payment had gone through before the Court hearing date so that it was all closed off and they could not be held to account, so I suppose CHAPS suited them best in that respect.
PS. I am no expert in caliming more than 6 years from date of initial claim to bank, but ther are other threads on this forum which you need to see in that respect.
I had the same situation with Halifax. I had 2 accounts with halifax in my own name. Then I made one of them a joint account with my girlfriend at the time. We split up and closed the joint account a couple of years ago.
Recently I started a claim on both accounts, the joint account had about £800 of charges some of which was when it was a joint account and some was from before.
All the correspondance letters from the bank were addressed to both myself and ex (much to the delight of my new girlfriend!), and after the lba letter they replied saying that they would be settling by cheque for the full amount of this account and they would be paying the settlement for my other account into the account as it was still open.
The letter said that by banking the cheque I was accepting their settlement etc. But no mention of both of us needing to agree etc.
2 days later they paid both amounts into my active account (even though they told me it would be a cheque).
I thought I might have trouble because it was only me and not both parties, but it wasn't a problem at all. Apparently some banks use that as a delaying tactic such as saying any settlements need to be signed by both parties or you can only claim 50% of the charges etc but some (including halifax) seem to be ok.
Single Account converted to a Joint Account
in my name only.
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