Bletchley, The Court told me that the 7 days is not cast in stone. Yes, take the CMI sheet to the Court asap. Fax a copy to the defendant (the bank) and to their legal team if a separate firm of solictors. By claiming the 8% simple interest (allowed by the County Court Act) you are in effect claiming compensation from them because they have had the use of your money (the charges) over that period of time. Rather than claiming the 8%, some people have claimed 'contractual interest', ie the lending rate charged by the bank on your overdraft. Not only is it a much higher rate but it is compound interest rather than the 8% simple interest. My understanding is that if you were to claim contractual interest, I think you would need to know the rate applicable at the time of every charge - the bank will have changed its rate at various times during the last 6 years. Personally I think it is probably too late in the day for you to change the interest now - you would be amending the claim, although I am not sure if you may be allowed to do that on the Mercantile multi-track ie at item 4 'Statement of Case' of the CMI sheet? Be careful not to mess things up now.

Dixie, To attend the Court to represent your friend, you would need to get the Judge's permission to be your friend's 'Representative'. I did this in respect of my daughter. I asked permission on the basis that had the claim gone forward on the Small Claim's track, there is specific provision for the claimant to take along a 'lay representative' to speak on their behalf. Therefore I did not see why my daughter should be denied the facility through the case being transferred to the Mercantile Court. We received permission. Not sure how you will stand if you or your friend do not attend the hearing. I would feel uneasy at not doing so unless the Court said it was not a problem. I suppose it depends on what the Judge is intending to do at the hearing and whether he is content to proceed purely on what you have put in your CMI sheet.

Last Knight, Is yours a Mercantile Court hearing on 1st March or is yours County Court Small Claims hearing?

Dixie Dean, The Court told me that the 7 days timing for submission of CMI sheet is not cast in stone. I suggest you take it in personally on Monday, or fax (phone them for a fax number) or Royal Mail Special Delivery (next day guaranteed delivery). There are example CMI sheet answers earlier in this forum. Be sure to ask for additional information CPR 18 and Disclosure CPR31. CPR 59 says also to serve a copy of the CMI sheet on the bank. I believe your AQ questionnaire is now redundant.

JL, I don't think you need to bother with a 'bundle' at this stage. Anybody else got any views on this?

JL, When I spoke to the lady at court last week she said the 'submit within 7 days' was not cast in stone. I suggest that you take the CMI sheet in personally, fax it or send it Royal Mail Special Delivery (£4.10) and that way you can track it and get a signature for it. CPR 59 says that you should also serve a copy on the defendant (again I suggest by Special delivery). In all honesty I suspect that the Court is expecting most, if not all, of these claims to be settled before 7 February. The submission of the CMI sheet is just going thru the motions and putting the banks on the spot as much as anything. If you have asked for 'further information' from the bank and 'disclosure of documenst' (which you ought to do) in your CMI sheet, then the banks are duty bound to respond, which they do not want to do. Note that I gave some details of CPRs and CMI sheets in my message of yesterday on this forum. Don't let me put you off track as there are some ready made CMI answer templates earlier in this forum by others.

For anybody wishing to know more about the Case Management Information Sheet (CMI) and CPR 59 etc: The Civil Procedure Rules CPR 59, CPR 18, CPR 31 etc are obtainable on Department for Constitutional Affairs - Home Page web site (web site dca.gov.uk). They come in the form of the actual Rule eg CPR 18 entitled 'Further Information' and a separate 'Practice Direction' sheet (clickable in the top right of the CPR page). Either use the 'Search' facilty on the DCA web home page eg search for 'CPR 18' or to get straight in, forget the home page and go to PART 18 - FURTHER INFORMATION (web site dca.gov.uk/civil/procrules_fin/contents/parts/part31.htm) Change the 18 to 31 to get to Part 31 and change to 59 to get to Part 59 etc. Note that CPR 18 is entitled 'Further Information' whilst CPR 31 is entitled 'Disclosure and Inspection of Documents'. Therefore if you want the bank to provide information, I assume this is under CPR 18. If you want the bank to disclose documents that it has in its possession then I assume it comes under CPR 31. Anybody wanting the Case Management Information sheet can get it from CPR 59 at Appendix A. save it on your pc as a pdf file. Open the saved pdf file on your pc, then save it again as editable text (eg on Notepad). Then open Microsoft Word (all files) and you should be able to open the Notepad file. Then save as a 'Word' document and you can fill in the answers. I appreciate this is a bit late in the day for the Leeds hearing, but hope it may be useful to late-comers.