Re sending your letter Special Delivery to Halifax...if you still have the SD slip, you can go to Royal Mail website, click on "track and trace", type in the reference number and it should give you the delivery status, it should also show you the signature and name of person who signed for it. I send all my letters re my claim against The Woolwich Recorded Delivery, which can be tracked in the same way, and print off the Proof of Delivery, just in case The Woolwich try to claim non receipt if and when it goes to court

LMC (London Mortgage Company) was recently acquired by Lehman Bros, who also own Southern Pacific Mortgages Ltd (SPML), Southern Pacific Personal Loans (SPPL), and Preferred Mortgages. At present each company is trading separately and will retain the brands for the time being, although Preferred Mortgages are due to vacate theitr offices in Haywards Heath at the end of this year and move in with SPML in Broadgate. LMC have a particularly strict set of rules that they apply when granting "consent" to a 2nd charge. In common with most "sub prime" lenders, they place a "restriction" at the Land Registry which obliges anyone wishing to place a charge behind their existing first charge to effectively get their permission. LMC usually require that the last 6 months contractual mortgage payments have been made, in full, on time, and by DDM. They will also check any proposed 2nd charge lending still fits their own equity and income criteria. Any variation from this will generally lead to them declining to give consent. The bottom line is with LMC is dont get into arrears, as your options are limited to negotiating with LMC to set up a payment plan to clear the arrears, finding the funds from your own resources, remortgaging (with an average of a 6% ERC + all their add on charges) or finding a second charge lender who will ignore the consent restriction and place an "equitable charge" behind LMC

I think that you should be able to claim back the DDM charges. Re the solicitors, Igroup or GE Money as they are now, use 2 firms of solicitors, based in their offices who work exclusively for them. I imagine that they work to a set feescale depending on what Igroup instruct them to do. I would have thought that Igroup would be invoiced by their solicitors accordingly, so you may be able to request sight of the invoice to compare the charge with the actual cost. Whether they will comply with your request is another matter!! btw...why did they charge you a valuation fee?

This is a letter I propose to send to Barclays in response to their derisory offer of 4th July Laurence White Customer Relations Barclays Bank PLC Freepost RLTA-CSUE-TCHC Head Office Customer Relations London E14 5HP 6th July 2006 Your Ref: XXXXXXXX Dear Mr White Re: Account No: XXXXXXXX I am in receipt of your letter of 4th July 2006, and note the contents. I refer in particular to your offer of 210.00 in full and final settlement of my claim of 522.50. I do not consider this to be a fair and reasonable offer, in the light of your inability to prove the actual loss suffered by The Woolwich, as a result of unpaid direct debits and standing orders on the above numbered account. If you are prepared to provide documentary evidence of the actual loss that has been incurred then I will be in a position to assess your offer properly. In the meantime, I do not accept your offer of 210.00 unless this is classed as an interim payment, in which case I reserve the right to pursue the balance of the claim by whatever means I see fit. As you chose not to respond to my letter of 19th June 2006, within the time frame set out in that letter and my previous letter of 5th June 2006, I was obliged to issue court proceedings against The Woolwich on 4th July 2006. My claim, therefore, has now increased to 824.75, including statutory interest pursuant to section 69 of the County Courts Act, and Court costs. Clearly it is not in the interests of either of us to pursue the matter through the court system, as this will waste both time and money for each party involved. Having closely followed numerous similar cases against financial institutions for unlawful removal of funds from customer accounts since early 2006, I note with interest that, without exception, either judgment has been awarded against the defendants, or the defendants have settled in full prior to judgment. Please be aware that I am determined to proceed with the litigation that I have instigated unless you are prepared unconditionally to settle this claim for 824.75 in full. Yours sincerely,

Thank you for that. I think that I will pursue my existing claim to a conclusion, then go back to see if I can claim the rest

Having had no further response either from Woolwich or Barclays, I issued prodeedings against the Woolwich on 4th July, claiming 522.50 + 222.25 interest + 80.00 Court costs. This morning I received a standard letter from Laurence White "Customer Relations Manager" at Barclays "I refer to our letter of 8th June (a standard ackowledgement of my letter of 5th June) May I say how sorry I am to learn that you feel the bank charges you have incurred are unfair. In your correspondence you have referred to elements which you feel support your claim. Barclays is aware of the information you have drawn to our attention. I must inform you, however, that we disagree with your view. When an account is opened with us, our customer is provided with a copy of the Terms and Conditions relating to the use of their account; including details of our charges. This information clearly explains our obligations to our customers, as well as their obligations to us. If we make changes to the Terms and Conditions, we provide details of these changes to our customers in line with the Banking Code. Details of our terms and conditions, along with our charging tariff, can be obtained at any of our branches, or via our internet site, www.woolwich.co.uk/barclays.com. Despite my comments above in relation to your views, on this occasion, and without any admissions as to the basis of your complaint, I am willing to offer 210.00 towards the total amount you are seeking. This is with the cost and inconvenience inherent in a further dispute in mind and is intended as a gesture of goodwill. If you would like to accept my offer, please sign and return the enclosed form in the pre paid envelope provided. I will arrange for the payment to be credited direct to your account within 7 working days of receipt of your acceptance. If you wish to dicuss this letter, or you feel that there are further issues that I need to consider, please contact me on my direct telephone number 0207 XXX XXXX. If you are dissatisfied with my proposal for resloving your complaint you may ultimately be eligible to refer to the Financial Ombudsman Service. The leaflet sent with our letter of 8 June explains our complaints process and provides details regarding the Financial Ombudsman Service. In accordance with our standard practice, if I do not hear from you to the contrary within 8 weeks from the date of this letter, I shall assume that your complaint is resolved and close my file. Yours sincerely Laurence White Customer Relations Manager" The form they want me to sign accepting their offer is as follows:- "Customer Acknowledgement Thank you for your letter detailing your response to my complaint I accept the sum of 210.00 in full and final settlement of my complaint with Woolwich PLC Date....................... Signature................." This, I feel is a standard opening offer, made on the basis that I will accept in order to prevent additional cost and inconvenience. HOW WRONG THEY ARE!!! I have no intention of accepting their derisory offer. Proceedings have been issued, and I expect them to pay me back 100% + interest and costs. If they thought for one minute that they had a leg to stand on, do you think they would offer anything? I doubt it!!

Having watched this forum with interest over the last few weeks, I finally decided to take the plunge and start the process. I have kept all my statements going back at least until 1998, but realise that I cannot claim for items deducted more than 6 years ago. So I worked out that they had taken £522.50 from my account since August 2000. I sent the "preliminary request" letter on 5th June, together with a schedule of the charges and received an acknowledgement from the "Woolwich Telephony Customer Relations Team" dated 7th June, stating that my "complaint" had been passed to Barclays Head Office. The next day I received a letter from Mike Brophy (signed in his absence!) at Barclays acknowledging my letter and advising that "one of my team" will contact me shortly. Heard nothing since then. Sent Letter Before Action both to the Woolwich and Barclays on 19th June giving them 14 days to settle in full. My one question is this. Although legally I realise that I cannot claim for charges over 6 years old, (there is at least £1000 of these going to 1999), (I did read in one of the Abbey threads that Abbey settled some old charges), would it be worth adding these in to a claim filed at Court, or would this be an opportunity for them to successfully defend my claim against them?

you could always apply for a winding up order!!