Business account over 19,000 in bank charges.** SETTLED IN FULL ***

[dolfos]

My husbands business failed after six years as a sole trader and instead of bankruptcy he went for an IVA which he is now in and has been paying for six months now. I previously posted about issue we had regarding Lloyds taking money which was for a funeral out of my husbands account.

After getting this issue finally sorted out I got a bee in my bonnet and decided to go after the charges on my husbands now closed HSBC business account. HSBC are one of the creditors involved in the IVA he owed them approx 20K. Today after sending off the data request letter and alot of messing around on HSBC's part we got the statements however six months worth has not arrived and we are waiting to get them. However today we sat down and went through the four years of statements we have got and so far the charges have amounted to a sickening 19,616UKP. It's no wonder the business struggled and cash flow like for any small business was a nightmare. I am worried I may have bitten off more than I can chew even contemplating going after this amount. I am well aware any monies may well have to be given to the IVA practioner but after all the stress we have been through lately this seems like a better option then to let the bank have it all. However I can not see that any monies recouped could be classed as a 'windfall'. Any help much appreciated I got some fantastic advice previously and much needed support. I know this is a biggey but I am hoping someone has some handy help and advice to give. Thanks inadvance.

[keepitunderthemattress]

Hi there

 

I'm afraid I can't help, but I just wanted to say good luck.I know how incensed I feel about my current dispute with HSBC, but £19K in so called charges is obscene. I hope you are successful!

[gbzstro]

I too am claiming for a Business account - but for around £3K. However I guess that the procedure is still the same. For your amount I would expect a real scrap from the bank - still stick to your guns and following the guidlines set out in the FAQ - I will be watching this thread and wish you luck.

[dolfos]

Thanks for supprt, Still waiting on a few missing months to get a deffinate figure. Will keep updating this thread as I go

[Flor]

Hello dolfos,

 

I have just started the claim process myself and so cannot provide you with advice but I wish you lots of luck getting your money back!

[Hedgehog]

I think you should pm a moderator with this one and see if they can help..

I think you can do it, but you will not be able to go through small claims as it isn't really a small claim! so may cost a bit more to start, but I don't think you are the first! go for it and good luck!

[dinahjl]

Hi Dolfos,

 

WOW!! It must make you both sick - and vey angry after all you've been through. THere is no question they should be made to pay this back - afterall, you could argue that these unlawful charges are partly responsible for the failure of the business.

 

I really believe it is ESSENTIAL that you speak to a Solicitor because of the size of your claim. Ask about a no win no fee arrangement - you will find the press coverage on this issue will make it easy to find a GOOD firm who will take this on for the PR alone!

 

You must choose a firm that specialise in this kind of matter, perhaps someone can recommend a firm.

 

Really wish you good luck with this - and you will find loads of support for you both here and from a good solicitor. Ask the CAB if they can recommend someone.

[dolfos]

Ok I know it's been a while. Have been doing a hell of alot of work to ensure all facts correct and that what myself and my husband are about to do is not gonna come back and bite us in the bum!

We have spoken to our insolvencey practioner(IP) finally who in turn had to do a fair amount of checking and research for this one as it is a whole new ball game as far as IVA's are concerned, especially as HSBC are the largest creditor in the IVA for a business loan which they bullied my husband into in the first place! Anyway no digressing!

The IP has told us as of yesterday that we can go after all the bank charges and credit card charges etc. Although it is not strictly speaking a windfall it is something the Supervisor of our IVA must be informed of and is something the creditors have a claim to. However he has stated a maximum of 50% will go to our creditors and that that we would be able to keep the other 50% of the money! We can also look at settling the IVA in a shorter period as all creditors will want their share as soon as possible and are not likely to say they don't want their money sooner rather than later and also they will not want to turn down the higher return in the pound that they will be getting. The other thing that I was pleased about is that our IP will be drafting a letter which i should recieve in the next few days which they will send to each creditor advising them of our intentions and the potential outcome for them ie increased return in pound and quicker settlement.

This is a massive turning point for our family after all the s*** we have been put through by banks etc.

The grand total of bank charges for the business account is infact..... 25,281.06UKP

I shall keep this thread updated and I know thismay be a battle but one deffinately worth undertaking. I really can not thank the guyswho set up this website enough. Our whole outlook really is changing and for that i owe all you guys a great big thanks. Keep support coming and any advise think we may need it.

:) :)

 

 

[RG001]

Wow wee! That is an awful ot of money! I really really hpe you are succesful, I will follow this one closely. I suspect HSBC will be fighting tooth and nial for this one!

[gizmo111]

Ok I know it's been a while. Have been doing a hell of alot of work to ensure all facts correct and that what myself and my husband are about to do is not gonna come back and bite us in the bum!

We have spoken to our insolvencey practioner(IP) finally who in turn had to do a fair amount of checking and research for this one as it is a whole new ball game as far as IVA's are concerned, especially as HSBC are the largest creditor in the IVA for a business loan which they bullied my husband into in the first place! Anyway no digressing!

The IP has told us as of yesterday that we can go after all the bank charges and credit card charges etc. Although it is not strictly speaking a windfall it is something the Supervisor of our IVA must be informed of and is something the creditors have a claim to. However he has stated a maximum of 50% will go to our creditors and that that we would be able to keep the other 50% of the money! We can also look at settling the IVA in a shorter period as all creditors will want their share as soon as possible and are not likely to say they don't want their money sooner rather than later and also they will not want to turn down the higher return in the pound that they will be getting. The other thing that I was pleased about is that our IP will be drafting a letter which i should recieve in the next few days which they will send to each creditor advising them of our intentions and the potential outcome for them ie increased return in pound and quicker settlement.

This is a massive turning point for our family after all the s*** we have been put through by banks etc.

The grand total of bank charges for the business account is infact..... 25,281.06UKP

I shall keep this thread updated and I know thismay be a battle but one deffinately worth undertaking. I really can not thank the guyswho set up this website enough. Our whole outlook really is changing and for that i owe all you guys a great big thanks. Keep support coming and any advise think we may need it.

:) :)

 

 

 

How much did you owe at the start of IVA?

[ppauls150]

First thing Best of Luck with your claim. Secondly i cannot see why this should be any different to any other claim. I know that some people are worried about when the sum is higher than the 5k rule for small claims but i suppose in your situation this looks like you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. IF you lose and have to pay court costs then they can stand in line with the rest of the creditors. Is your husband now working as if not maybe he will be entitled to Legal Aid. Thirdly i still cannot see a bank wanting to defend this claim, though not saying that they won't, but can you imagine what would happen if this went to court on how the bank have acted in making someone lose their business and everything else for £20k worth of unlawful charges? Think of the Press coverage on this if they ever did go to court and when they lose how they will be in the spotlight. Then you also have to look at compensation within your claim due to these unlawful bank charges under stress and so forth. Don't know what everyone else thinks but i would surely be looking at a compensation payout on this. Though you might want things to be kept personal is there any chance of letting us know exactly what is owing on the IVA and exactly how much to each creditor? i.e just say Creditor A=£3000 and how much for HSBC=£22000 but only if you wish. It might help matters on what course of action you can look at.

[joebloggs]

Jesus what a frightenign amount of money, that said i guess the principle for reclaiming is the same so hopefully you can turn this aorund pretty quickly.

I guees the bank will see they have no choice but to play hard ball, on the flip side the publicity aspect may well swing in your favour as everyone nowadays wants to give the banks a good kicking.

I really do hope it all works out for you.

[sarahpp]

I have a claim for £4k over 5 years and the interest on that is almost £1k on the standard 8% court rate. Have you thought about whether you are going to claim the contractual rate?

 

Best of Luck

 

Sarah

[joebloggs]

sarahpp.

 

I did try and work out the contractual rate but to no avail, so instead relied on the 8% at MCOL stage.

The difficulty i had apart from my appaling ability to deal with even the simplest of maths was trying to work out what was the actual sum applied to the individual charges.

Rather than make a hash of the whole thing i stuck to what i was confident and i was comfortable in arguing in court should the need arise.

I have this weekend submitted S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) for my savings and visa account with fd, this may well prove to be a little easier to work out particularly with the savings account.

The visa i will go into a lot more detail given that the accrued interest over 6 years is likely to be a substantial amount of money.

Whilst the money side of it is important to me i do have a very specific point of principle in all this, so going to court if needs be doesn't phase me out in the slightest.

In particular with the visa account, i have no qualms at all in going the whole hog.

FD beware round two is just about to get a whole lot hotter!!

Good luck with your claim hope all goes smoothly.

[sarahpp]

I know - I haven't claimed compounded contractual yet because it would have taken me over 5k but, for dolfos 25k at up to 25% compounded -pheweeeee!!!!!!

[Dlr]

hi,

 

just to say the same as the rest and that is the best of luck to you, I had a sharp intake of breath when I saw the amount. I should imagine the procedure is exactly the dame for any amount.

[dolfos]

First thing Best of Luck with your claim. Secondly i cannot see why this should be any different to any other claim. I know that some people are worried about when the sum is higher than the 5k rule for small claims but i suppose in your situation this looks like you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. IF you lose and have to pay court costs then they can stand in line with the rest of the creditors. Is your husband now working as if not maybe he will be entitled to Legal Aid. Thirdly i still cannot see a bank wanting to defend this claim, though not saying that they won't, but can you imagine what would happen if this went to court on how the bank have acted in making someone lose their business and everything else for £20k worth of unlawful charges? Think of the Press coverage on this if they ever did go to court and when they lose how they will be in the spotlight. Then you also have to look at compensation within your claim due to these unlawful bank charges under stress and so forth. Don't know what everyone else thinks but i would surely be looking at a compensation payout on this. Though you might want things to be kept personal is there any chance of letting us know exactly what is owing on the IVA and exactly how much to each creditor? i.e just say Creditor A=£3000 and how much for HSBC=£22000 but only if you wish. It might help matters on what course of action you can look at.

 

Hi thanks for support. yes my husband is working now he had to inorder for us to be able to pay enough a month for the IVA. In total the IVA was for around 83K we have never been given an exact figure due to a dispute with the tax office who stated they believed we owed 11K when we believed it to be more like 6K. It has taken us eight months and alot of chasing and correspondace and letters and as it turns out they actually owed us money! They have finally come back this week stating that we were in credit for self assesment tax for just over 12K however there was amount of just under 7K outstanding for NIC/PAYE which they have offset against the credit. In effect HMRC are the only creditor who can take all their money. They have now withdrawn their claim from the IVA and the remaing 5.5K has been added to the IVA pot.

Our IVA is made up of the following, although figures are roughly and not exact:

 

HSBC=24,000

T=6,900

K=5,800

H=7,000

GC=4,500

BR=2,500

F=1,600

G=2,400

MB=6,400

MP=1,700

CB= 5,300

CP= 3,500

L=1,950

LD=3,500

E=3,600

x=2,500

 

As you can see HSBC are the largest creditor out of them all and they have added on quite a few charges to get to their figure already.

disgusting really but hopefully after tomorrow when my husband is meeting with his IP will have a bit more info to share. we are hoping to either completely settle the IVA if we are successful but we need to see what will be needed to do this.

Will keep posted.

The press I am sure would have a field day we are still not sure weather to spread the risk and go for a year at a time with the claim as for 2001 the charges amount to about 2.5K that way keeping it in small claims and trying to see how the bank are gonna react. Or do we just throw all caution to wind and go for the whole lot, however, this is almost gusranteed if ever anything was going to, get the banks to court to give them quite an incentive to find a loop hole. I wondered if in one of the letters where the bank refers to charges being used to make up for bad debters etc weather or not they could use us as an example of why bank charges are set. As our case in theory shows wouldn't they look at it and say 'hey this is what we mean this guy has lost us this amount of money etc' However as i said if this money had been part of business cash flow and the bank had been really acting in my husbands best interest when they got him to take out this loan I don't think we would be in this position. I am concerned the bank could use the amount we actually owe them for their defence and I know We need to justify why the bank have alot to answer for with regards to the amount we owe.

An example is that when the fuel strike was on and customers did not (like many people,use their cars they didn't come in to purchase goods and in turn did not come in to pay their bills either as they normally would. However the bank did not take this into account and that month was the largest amount of bank charges in the region of 2,500 in total.

anway will stop going on probably repeating myself alot, sorry. Will update after meeting with IP to start ball rolling.

Thanks again:)

[sarahpp]

So basically Dolfos, the entire amount owed to your biggest creditor, HSBC is down to unlawful charges?

 

This really is awful - you must have been through so much stress.

 

very best wishes

 

Sarah

[dolfos]

So basically Dolfos, the entire amount owed to your biggest creditor, HSBC is down to unlawful charges?

 

This really is awful - you must have been through so much stress.

 

very best wishes

 

Sarah

 

Hiya,

Yeah you could say a lttle stress has been are way for the last year We had to sell our home and use the equity to pay off as many creditors as we could however this is still left over and yes HSBC amount is if you like covered by the amount of unlawful charges just over what they are saying we owe them. Unbelieveable. i had just had my second child when it all cam to light as my husband had not wanted to add further stress although i knew things were tight with the business it wasn't till I bought our son home that he opened up and it all come running out. At first there was lots of anger and thoughts to leave him to it and run away but I knew that we could face it together and there would be a way out. We have beenthrough a rough 18 months and for alot of that i felt like it was us against the world. With the help of family and friends and now most deffinately this website and helpful advice regarding our options ie IVA/bankcruptcy through a proper insolvencey practioner (not one of these companies you see on TV stating they will right off upto 95% of your debt which is a load of rubbish.) It is nice to know there are thousands of people out there like us and it is such a shame that many people are still out there feeling alone and stuck with little control over what happens. these big corporate banks who bully us have a hell of alot to answer to. Blimey I sound like I'm on a crusade, I just really hate how we have been made to feel, like criminals because we have had financial difficulties. I think the old generation keeping their money under mattress's weren't so wrong after all.

[pinkychops]

Hi Dolfos,

What an awful situation for you and your husband. A problem shared is a problem halved and it is so good to hear you and your husband are standing together against these baa lambs. Good Luck to you both. Hopefully this web site, by word of mouth will find all those people who are in trouble because of the banks and their greed. Carry on with your "crusade", it is absolutely appalling that they have caused you, your husband and family so much worry.

Will be rooting for you both.

[ppauls150]

Our IVA is made up of the following, although figures are roughly and not exact:

 

HSBC=24,000

T=6,900

K=5,800

H=7,000

GC=4,500

BR=2,500

F=1,600

G=2,400

MB=6,400

MP=1,700

CB= 5,300

CP= 3,500

L=1,950

LD=3,500

E=3,600

x=2,500

 

Well you will get all the help and advice you need from here and i am sure a mod will be along sooner or later to give you some real sound advice. All we can really offer is just situations and hope and what we would look at but at the end of the day it all comes down to what you and your husband decide.

 

Aside from that i take it when you sold the house, quite a bit of the equity went to HSBC already for the rest outstanding to be made up of charges because if they forced you down this route with owing that much with it all being made up of unlawful charges i would really look at throwing the book at them.

 

My opinion and this is just me but please make your own decisions would be to really sit down and get an agenda of how to takle this.

 

I would be looking at somewhere above the lines of gettting the proper facts and figures of how much you owed and what percentage of this was made up of unlawful charges. If the charges outweighed what was owing then seriously look at writing a stern letter which includes one of the templates from this site asking for your money back and along the lines of your disgute at how the bank offered you no real help but only compounded the problem with high charges. Due to the plight that made you go down this route you feel that you have suffered financially and look at highlighting these facts to the papers and television.

 

I would look at making just the one total claim of what you are owed and would put the contractual interest on now as opposed to when you look at issuing court proceedings.

 

there are fors and againsts by going for the whole ammount but the big for is the bank may seriously look at themselves and see you are serious about this and would really be a big story on the news and papers. The against is obviously that they may feel they would have to defend this matter due to the ammount where you could end up having to pay legal costs. If this happened then you could end up with a legal bill for thousands but then tbh the ammount your claiming for may outweigh the cost of losing as you could probably just look at chucking onto the IVA, as what else can they take from you.

 

Once again this is just my advise please think carefully about your own options you wish to take.

[sootica]

I had to reply to you as I cannot believe the horrific amount that you have been charged by HSBC who as the poster above said, are your biggest creditor and their debt is almost entirely made up of bank fees! Unbelievable. Best of luck with your claim. I really would consider getting a no win no fee solicitor - as this is not a small claim, your solicitor will have their fees paid by the bank if you win. Ask the Law Society for solicitors near you who carry out CFAs (conditional fee arrangements - proper name for no win no fees). Law Society of England and Wales - Home

[fabianne]

Wow Dolfus!I am gobsmacked at that total..

Good luck and go get 'em girl!

You have been through SO much that you should see this as another challenge and you will wonder if you have the energy to fight anymore-but you MUST-that is a HOOGE amount of dosh!

Losing a business that you have put your life and soul into is heartbreaking(I am facing that at the moment)I understand-but if this goes through and you can repay some creditors-that light at the end of the tunnel will seem nearer,so then you can get on with your lives and relax.

There are quite a few business peeps on here and I am trying to keep contact with them as they are very helpful and you won't feel so alone,worried or bewildered.(thanks again guys!)PM me anytime and I hope that a mod will eventually string a business users thread together instead of darting about searching for info.

[beeniemac]

WOuld just like to wish you luck with this one... so much for HSBC 'supporting' small businesses!

[stephenfletcher]

I think you should go after the lot in one step. I also think you should seek publicity as the case progresses (find a non-threatening way of letting them know you intend to do this).

 

If you win, which you should, you get the money.

If you lose, it can only be on a technicality, HSBC look like money grabbing ********.