Goodluck Ellielou Watching you watching me hun Morgy x

Hi guys, Sorry been away for a few days but I have sent the defence and counter claim off to the solicitors and the local court also the allocation Questionaire. Awaiting there response with debated breath. keep up dated Morgy x

I asume you need paragraph 15 but I thought i'd fill you in with a few other things that are on the defence that i did not include earlier, just incase you need to know. 12. The mortgage completed on or around 7 April 2004. The claimant redeemed the Mortgage with the defendant on 8 August 2005. Under the terms of the Mortgage, that was in the 2nd year following completion of the mortgage,an early repayment of 6% of the sum being repaid was payable. as a result the defendant applied a fee of £7149.64. 13. In the premises the Defendant denies that the claimant is entitled to recover the sum claimed plus interest plus court fee or that the claimant is entitled to any relief wahatsoever. 14. The defendant repeats the defence herein. 15.Persuant to the mortgage conditions incorporated into the mortgage,the claimant agreed to indemnity the defendant against any costs it incurred. 16.In the premises,the defendant claims from the caimant its resonable costs of these proceedings on a full,complete and unqualified basis. 17. Further,the claimant claims interest on those costs at the mortgage interest rate from the date those costs are incurred untill payment,alternatively under section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at such rate and for such period as the court shall redeem fit. Have a good night , speak tomorrow. Thanks again x

I shall do the letter tonight thankyou. It's £7318.32 plus interest of 658.50 Thanks again hun. x

Sorry guys, Thanks for responding quickly need you,getting very scared and stressed. Not sure were I went wrong, still with my husband I just forgot to put his name on the money claim on line have I messed up with this. And yes they have put under part 13 at the bottom of the page counter claim and parts 14-17 sort of repeat themselves then this: AND the Defendant counterclaims: (1) Costs and expenses as a matter of contract as set out in paragraph 15 herein; (2) Alternativley to (1),the costs of these proceedings as a matter of the discretion of the court; (3) Interest; (4) Such further or other relief as may be necessary or desirable. Then the stamanet of truth bla bla Jx

HI ALL, Need help! just recieved defence from a drydens lawyers of Kessington (MAS) Dear Madam, please find enclosed, by way of service,our client's defence and counterclaim. It is given the contents of this document that your claim is completely without merit and so we strongly urge you to withdraw your claim. Should you fail to do so we reserve the right to produce this letter to the court on the question of costs which are client will seek from you. Whilst writing, if you do intend to pursue your claim,please confirm why your husband has been omitted from the claim. We look forward to hearing from you. DEFENCE AND COUNTERCLAIM 1.save as appears otherwise,the defendant denies each and every allegation contained in the particulars of Claim herein as if the same were each set out and specifcally denied. This Defence and counterclaim are served without prejudice to the Defendant's contention that they establish no reasonable grounds for bringing the claim and/or are an abuse and should be struck out. DEFENCE 2. The first sentence of the Particulars of Claim is noted. 3. The Defendant denies the second sentence. Redemption of the mortgage by the Claimant was not a breach of contract,but was expressly provided for under the terms of the Mortgage Offer and the Mortgage Conditions.Alternatively,if,which is denied,the claimant's redemption of the Mortgage was a breach of contract,it is contended by the defendant that the early repayment fee was a liquidated damages clause. 4.As to the third and fourth sentences, the defendant contends that the contract between the claiment fee and that the fee was not a disproportionate penalty. 5.It is denied that the erc was enforceable at common law and/or that it was a penalty clause. It is the defendant's case that the erc was the price payable under the contract by the claimant for excercising their contractual right to redeem the Mortgage earlyand was thus neither a penalty for breach of the contract,nor a liquidated dameges clause intended to compensate the defendant for breach of the contract. 6.The defendant has repeatedly explained to the claimant why the early repayment fee was leived and why the defendant will not agree to refund this.A copy of letters attached for this paragraph 5 is denied. 7.By way of a brief history, the defendant confirms: 8.On 26 March2004 the defendant sent a Mortgage offer to the claimant offering to lend a sum of £119,195 on the terms set out in the letter (including the special terns and conditions) The terms of the offer are attached. 9.Under the special conditions contained in the Mortgage Offer it was a TERM OF THE LOAN THE Claimant were entitled to redeem the Mortgage at any time before the end of the Mortgage term,but that if redeem the Mortgage at any time before the end of the Mortgage term,but that if redemption or part redemption of the loan occurred before the end of the Mortgage term an early repayment fee would be levied in accordance with the terms set out therein. There are points 11-17 which i have not included in this post because it seems to me they are just repeating themselves They have attached also a copy of our mortgage offer and terms and conditions which we signed any help on this one whould be greatly appreciated. thanks Jx

Hi ellielou, Good luck with MCOL today.Nothing to report as yet,still waiting will post soon as I recieve the defence. Jx

Good luck Meled, well done. I too am at the same stage as you they have untill 20th Oct to file a defence they intend to defend all of the claim 7318.32 pluss interest 658.50 I guess it's just a waiting game now best o luck Will watch your thread. x

Goodluck to all of you, Recieved letter from Kennsingtons solicitor (drydens) advising me they will be defending all of the claim £7318.32 + 658.50 Interrest Bring it on i say keep you posted x

Hi Guys, Only a little something to add. Recieved a letter from a Drydens lawers replying: Please find enclosed a copy of the acknowledgement of service we lave lodged at Court. By our calculations the defence is required by 4pm on 20th October 2006 Also enclosed is our Notice of Acting Yours faithfully Drydens They have then sent me a copy of the Acknowledgement of service and ticked the box they intend to defend all of this claim. God help me! keep you posted Morgyx

Thankyou, thankyou, so much for all the support you guys and good luck x

Hi all, just a quick update if anyone's interested. Just put claim in online to kennsington (Mas) tonight Exciting stuff! £7318.32 plus £658.50 (interest) plus £1.61 per day untill they pay up! Keep you all posted x

Hi Ellielou, I have now sent off a third letter as above and have given them one last chance to send breakdown. If they have not replied by the 14th Sept I am going to issue a claim on line. However not sure yet weather to claim £5k or the full £7k I now I will be liable for there costs if I loose Can I claim for £5k plus interest then go back around the loop for the remainder. Any thoughts on this one guys! Morgyx

Thanks to you both, fab letters. Will send letter off this morning and fax it, but how many days do you think I should give them to respond . Cheers Morgy

Hi to all, Here's my storey so far. Had a mortgage with Kennsington (Now call them selves MAS) had for 1 year slightly discounted then interest rates kept climbing in the first year and reached 9%. Had to get out fast so got stung for £7240.00. Sent letters off to complaints found in the libary and like other people on these threads I have recieved the foboff response and in short words tuff charges stand. So I followed there complaints procedure and escalated the complaint to stage 2, But had this back. I belive that the recent press coverage concerning bank charges may have given you the impression that you have a valid claim. MAS6 of course is a mortgage lender not a bank,and your complaint does not concern bank charges but rather ERC you paid when you redeemed your mortgage account. From your letters, I see that you do not fully explain precisley which aspects of the common law you consider have been infringed by MAS6 applying the ERC to your account. Furthermore you have mentioned in your letter "statute and recent consumer regulations" but are no more specific than this. If you issue court proceedings you will of course have to refer in your claim to the relevant Common Law principles and/or statutory provisions. Without this detail I am unable to understand the precise basis of your complaint and therefore perhaps you would assist me by providing this info to me now. I must advise you that if you do not provide us with these details and do issue proceedings, our solicitors will draw this to the attention of the District Judge and invite the court to take your refusal into account when considering your liability for our solicitors' costs. You do however make reference in your letter to bank charges being ltd to expenses actually incurred because of a customers breech. You therefore seem to be likening bank charges relating to customers breaches to the ERC, when in fact two are entirley different. You of course did not breach your mortgage agreement by redeeming your account. You were quite entitled to re-mortgage with another lender. The ERC is therefore not a charge to penalsie a defaulting borrower. The ERC, which was a major term of the mortgage agreement clearly detailed to you, and which you specifically agreed to pay if the account was redeemed within a short time of the mortgage completing, was charged because the precise details of the mortgage product offered to you were,as you will know, based on repayments over a period of 30 years. As such, the proposed mortgae contract was based on the reciept of monthly payments long term after the time when you decided to redeem and the ERC was included in your mortgage agreement to ensurethat your martgae remained finaciially viable transaction for MAS6 in the event that you chose to redeem your mortgage within the first 5 years rather than contine the contract for the agreed 30 years. A mortgage is after all by it's very nature a long term finace agreemeny, not a short term loan and the long term funding arragements are a key consideration. You also state in your letter that MAS6 was under an obligation to conduct itself "lawfully and in a manner that complies with uk law," the suggestion being that ther has been a breach of this obligation. This is a serious allegation. Again,without specific details of the basis upon wich you believe that there has been any unlawful conduct or breach of obligation by MAS6, nor specific reference to the relevant statutory provision(s) I am unable to comment on this point further. In a letter to you of 21st July 06 my collegue referred you to the content of the mortgage offer and t&c which allow for ERC.All in all the details could not have been made any clearer at the time you were cinsidering yuour mortage. In short the Erc is applied to an account for sound commercial resons and you agreed to pay it if you redeemed early. I have looked into this matter and the complaint is misconceived. If you wish to start County Court proceedings you sould serve these upon our solicitors whose details can be supplied on request. The claim would be defended. You should consider carefully your liability for solicitors' costs before commencing your claim and on this basis I would recommend that you seek independant legal advice in this matter than run the risk of incurring further expense by way of solicitors and legal costs. HELP! anyone please Morgyx

Hi Cathrine, Hi bonus Just a quick up date. Sent SAR letter today requesting information, as I have 2 Statements missing and one of those is the final settlement one. Also sent a letter to the co-ordinator who replied to my first compaint letter informing her to escalate my claim to stage 2 (what ever that means) BLOODY BULL**** if you ask me. I also pointed out in this letter that they have not supplied me information as to the breakdown of the massive EARLY REPAYMENT CHARGE as i requested. However I Been advised to exhaust the internal complaints procedure for this company (take my compaint to stage 2 etc). Not that it would yield any positive results but it would show a judge should the matter reach court (bring it on) that you tried all within your capacity to resolve the matter in an amicable manner. Also had some usefull advise DO NOT bother with the Ombudsman as they are useually in favour of the banks and not much help at all. I cannot believe that people like kensington and other finance companies have been able to get away with there actions for so long and it's time now for it to a stop. The likes of Kensington and the Abbey have caused nothing but mysery, stress heartace and more indebtedness for me and my familly, in what should have been a joyfull first year in my new home. They have cost us around £15,000.00 in charges (5,220.00 of which has now been refunded by Abbey after I took them to court). So lets stay hopefull and push as far as we can with these B****rds. Good luck keep me posted, hope you reply sooner than I useually do Judex

Hi Bonus, I'm glad I found you! I also am a victim of ERC totaling £7149.64 I took out a mortgage with Kensington at Skipton (Now they call them selves MAS) back in 2004. My husband and I came out of the 2 year fixed deal after a 12 month due to the rate rising from 6.% discounted to almost 8.9% in the first year. I sent a standard letter 20 days ago that I found in the forum libary. Got a reply today from MAS Plymouth stating they unconditionally refute my claim and that the ERC are clearly stated in the mortage offer and it was our responsibility to read and fully understand these charges, but they have failed to supply me with a full break down of there costs and losses.(which i asked them to supply. They also sent me a copy of my mortgage offer highlighting the % of charges that we would incure if we redeemed early. Any advise or guidence would be greatly appriciated, as i'm not sure were to go from here. I'm not sure how much refund (if any) we are entitiled to. Thanks for your time and good luck! Jude

:) THANKYOU,THANKYOU,THANKYOU,THANKYOU! :) To all of you on this forum, I cannot express how greatfull I am to all on this site, and as I sit here and type these words I feel very emotional. I have recieved a letter from DLA Piper and Rudnick this morning offering a full settlement (but they have not included any interest refund) but of course without any admission of legal liability by Abbey.surprise surprise I'm not so depressed today Caro x (you were right)x If there is one thing I have learnt by all of this is never give up hope (allthough I nearly did) it will come to you, you all deserve your refunds, and reading the threads and people's stories who have been ripped off month after month makes me feel physically sick because I have been there and it hurts. Abbey has put me through hell and back,so hold on in there and fight for what is rightfully yours. I pass on good wishes and lots of luck to everyone who is still WAITING. A special thankyou to the mods Morgyxx

Thanks Caro, Needed to hear that, feel a bit better now. I shall wait as you have advised. keep everyone posted speak soon. Morgyx

Hello again, More charges taken out! depressed, skint and tired of waiting to hear from the B***ARDS (sorry had to get that out) Shall try and open another account tommorrow as we got turned down from Lloyds TSB yesterday. Need to know what you think. Do I ring, send letter or email Abbey or thier solicitor to get an up date, or shall I just wait.I have had no reply form the solicitor (other than the copy of defence and 50% settlement) to the e-mail I sent 2 weeks ago turning 50% offer down. I'm a little concerned about things because I don't think Abbey's solicitor see's me as being confidant,serious or professonal about the whole thing, Maybe I feel like this because I should have sent a more professonal letter refusing there offer rather than "Sorry my husband and I are not in any financial possition to except this offer" This the letter I have just discovered. 21 January 2006 Dear Mr. Squires, NORTHAMPTON COUNTY COURT – CLAIM NO. 5QZXXXXX I thank you for your letter dated 18 January 2006. Whilst I appreciate your offer of ‘goodwill’, I am afraid that on this occasion I cannot accept. During the period that I mentioned in my letters prior to my legal action, the charges imposed upon my account by Abbey caused considerable hardship for my family and I, despite direct pleas to Abbey National to consider my case due to extraneous circumstances. My pleas were ignored and I believe this to be a direct contravention of the voluntary Banking Code to which Abbey National subscribe. I also thank you for your concern regarding my legal and financial position, however, I am entirely sure of my legal standing and, indeed, am sure of a favourable outcome should this case be heard in any claim track in the county court. I also have a financial backer and advisor who is very keen to see this case bought before a court. You mentioned in your letter that Abbey National would be entitled to charge ‘something’ and dispute my claim. I would argue that for the six years that Abbey had control of my money, the percentage gain outweighs the amount claimed and that Abbey would have profited from the ‘ownership’ of my money for this period in excess of the amount claimed. Indeed, public records of Abbey’s finances circumstantially prove this. You will notice that I deliberately have not claimed for the extra interest imposed on the account during this period for ‘unauthorised overdrafts’ as I believe this to be a fair way for Abbey to recoup costs incurred due to a breach of contract . I have invited Abbey on many occasions to furnish me with a breakdown of their costs for such a breach of contract and have quoted the 1977 Unfair Terms (contracts) Act in which anyone claiming that a term is reasonable must prove as such, which I am in no doubt that you are aware of. On each and every time this invitation has been levied, it, as I expected, has been refused. This leads me to believe (and I also believe anyone with a modicum of common sense) that the charges levied for these breaches are not a genuine pre-estimate of loss or intended to put Abbey back in the same financial position they were before the breach occurred. I am in possession of a statement from an Abbey employee that these charges are a deterrent measure and that the proceeds of which are used to subsidise ‘free banking’. I also have public newspaper cuttings and telephone recordings of high-ranking officials from banks in direct competition with Abbey in which they admit that the charges are a breach of contract and are a punitive charge for such. All banks make these charges, and as you are no doubt aware, the aforementioned act states that if a person cannot choose a similar contract without a particular term with a body offering similar services, then that term shall be deemed unfair and therefore not enforceable in law. With this in mind, I stand by my claim of £2806 plus court costs (which will of course increase by £100 once I have submitted my Allocation Questionnaire which has been received and completed in anticipation of your refusal of this offer) and interest as allowed by the 1984 County Courts Act. In conclusion, I will be willing to settle for the full amount, as I am aware that not to do so and insist on a court appearance would be considered ‘bad form’ by the court and I duly respect that. With this in mind, may I respectfully ask you to complete the attached questionnaire and return it to me at your earliest convenience. Due to the time restraints imposed by the court (and the time allotted to return a completed Allocation Questionnaire), if I do not hear from you within 5 days of receipt of this letter I must assume option 2. Due to the time constraints I am willing for you to contact my advisor directly on 07xxxxxxxxxxxx. I look forward to your prompt reply, Yours sincerely, Ms. XXXX.  We have taken a pragmatic approach to the situation and Abbey National wish to pay the full amount claimed plus interest and all court cost incurred by the claimant. A cheque for the full amount claimed including interest and incurred court costs is enclosed. We understand that by doing so this will be accepted as full settlement on this occasion.  We dispute the entire claim proffered by the claimant and refuse any payment. Signed.:___________________________________ Date.:______________________________ Any comments? fab isn't it over and out Morgyx

Hi Seminole, Sent you a copy of my Defence on e-mail hope it's ok, any feed back would be great Thanks again Catch you later x

Hi Caro, Thanks for the reply. Another little bit of help please if you could.Apart from preparing myself for court (god help me)! when I sent the allocation questionaire back to the courts I didnot send a spread sheet with all the charges on.I just totalled up the charges from the statments over the 6 year period, also do I need to do or send anything else to the courts, like the interest workout bit. I'm just totally confused about the calculation of interest and I can't remember wether I included the interest on the allocation questionaire or the claim form. Am I confusing you? I thought I was so organised. PLEASE HELP! Your new frend Morgyx

Hi all, New to all this so bare with me.Here's my storey. Fortunatly i've got all 6 years statements grand toatal of charges £6600.00 plus Been offered £500.00 goodwill jesture from complaints manager in Milton Keynes(having a laugh) refused this. Claimed for £5000.00 plus court cost and interest on moneyclaim on line. Abbey acknowledged on 14th day, which bought them a further 14 days. on the 26th day they filed a defence along with a letter from there trainee solicitor offering 50% refund totalling £2,500.00 plus 120.00 court cost.Also in this letter they were suggesting my intentions were never to pay any charges what so ever. I then e-mailed the solicitor two weeks ago stating "Thankyou for your letter of settlement but I am financially not in any position to take this offer. However it has never been my intention to never pay charges as my origanal claim to Abbey was for £6600.00 Therefore my request is for a full refund of £5000.00 plus costs and interest and I shall drop the case" No reply since! Yesterday I rang my local court for an up date and they advised court date set for the 28th Sept I'm feeling a little nerved! any suggestions or advise anyone could give would be very much appriciated. Thanks for listning Morgy x