you'll get a similar sound if the battery isn't up to par. This doesn't mean flat, just not enough ooomph to start the engine. My usually reliable Mazda did this on Monday, 10 minutes on the charger nd its been right as rain ever since. That'll teach me to listen to the car radio with the engine off!

This forum never ceases to amaze me, the original question (above) required a one word answer, yet reading through the numerous replies I have seen an established car trader's reputation questioned, discussions about the legalities of driving abroad, MOT testing, conspiracies,the use of trade plates, case law, car auctions and god knows what else. The answer is simply NO! (All good stuff though, and fascinating to read through!)

I take your point, but what we think is irrelevant here, it's the sheriff's decision that carries the weight in the real world. If his decision had been so questionable, I doubt an experienced lawyer like Mr Onifade would have accepted the ruling.

Al27 - In the case i was refering to he held that the words fine and charge had entirely different meanings and therefore he couldn't be held to account if the wrong term had been used. The Sheriff at the first hearing didn't agree, so he appealled. The Sheriff hearing the appeal didn't agree with him either and, as part of his reasoning quoted entries from the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary and Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary as follows - The defender's argument appears to me to be disingenuous. The meaning of 'fine' in this context is obviously 'fee'. That is one of the meanings of 'fine' given in standard dictionaries: 'a fee paid for any privilege' (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary); 'a fee paid on some particular occasion' (Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary). As the Sheriff points out, a familiar example of the use of 'fine' in this sense occurs where a lending library requires a borrower returning an overdue book to pay a 'fine'. As this has now been accepted as case law, it seems a bit pointless to argue that these are not the correct definitions, as stated by the learned Sheriff. Reading further about Mr Onifade, he practices employment and immigration law in Edinburgh and also stood as a prospective candidate for the Scottish Parliament and is a Race Equality Advisor to Strathclyde Police. He has been before the appeal court on another claim, against the Secretary of State for Social Security seeking justice by examining technicalities - that is the point I was making. In Scotland at least, the spirit of the law seems to have a bearing on the outcome of cases, whereas in England more weight is given to the letter of the law. If he felt the Sheriff was wrong I am certain he would have taken it further given his legal knowledge and track record of appeals. Sorry if my previous comment didn't make this clear. The Sheriff's response and definitions can be read in the written judgement just google (The University of Edinburgh against Daniel Onifade)

If you read the document closely is says "the total charge for credit (4+5)" Doesn't this mean that the fee comes after the interest? I.e. the interest is calculated before the fee is added to give the total amount payable? If so then this shows that interest isn't being charged on the fee. Take the interest figure, divide it by the credit figure then divide this by 5 (years) and you get 6.1%, that's without the fee included. Having said that, charging interest on the premium for insurance, (which doesn't appear to have been signed for by the way) seems a bit rich. From this document, as neither the C(i) nor C(ii) have been completed, there's no proof that insurance was/wasn't taken as one of these two options must be completed.

any time, it's nice to know that studying for my CeMap wasn't wasted!

apologies for the typo (stiff fingers) as I know the two cases are far from identical and are in different jurisdictions, it was the wee line "In British law, there is no provision for a private company to issue "fines" or "penalties" to anyone" I was highlighting as this is the same defence Mr Onifade use but the courts didn't agree with him. My comments weren't aimed at you, I'm sure you're a lovely person, but at the sweeping statement. Thanks for giving me the chance to clarify this

crem - I think you're morally correct in what you say, but just think of the chaos if everyone started to use the "I wasn't feeling well" defence. Given the numbers of non caring morons who currently misuse these spaces its obvious that there needs to be some form of rationing otherwise the disabled would never get a look in. At present the blue badge is the entry ticket, and although frequently abused, its a start. What else would you suggest? For my part, I have suffered with Rheumatoid Arthritis for over 15 years and on really bad days I'm lucky if I can manage a dozen steps, very slowly. Fortunately I have many good days where I merely have stiff joints. As such I am not judged sufficiently disabled to get a blue badge. So be it. I'd rather go without one than have permanent walking problems. What really angers me is that I never, ever, park in disabled bays but many of the "Max Power" brigade, (baseball caps, black windows and load stereos) seem to use them as reserved parking spaces and this has to be stopped. Its bad enough to be disabled, imagine not being able to use those areas specially designed to help you? With regard to the reply from m3rjs - In the case of Edinburgh University V Daniel Onifade (December 2004) the original court found that the university did have the power to charge people without valid parking permits in their car park. The defender appealed to higher court on two counts: first that the University didn't have the power to levy charges; and second that the car park notices referred to "Fines" and the parking ticket called them "penalties". Neither of these terms being legally enforceable by a university. The appeal was heard by Sheriff Principle Iain MacPhail QC who ruled that the original court decision was correct and dismissed the appeal because he held the opinion that it was obvious that the terms fine and charge mean the same thing and quoted the Oxford English and Chambers Dictionaries definitions as supporting this position. The daily "charge" for not having a permit was £10, and he had parked there on 31 occasions. Because he hadn't paid the charge increased to £30 per day and he argued that they had no right to charge a "penalty". The University successfully sued him for £870 plus interest and expenses. I don't know if this decision would have any effect on English law, but it certainly muddies the waters north of the border.

Its not the FOS they would be worried about, its the FSA and they have much stringer powers (and bigger fines) as they could suspend or cancel their authorisation to sell insurance. Imagine how much that could cost them, not to mention the impact of bad publicity.

I'm with buzby on this one. One of the worst crimes today's motorists can commit in my book. I'm slightly disabled, but don't meet the requirements for a blue badge at this point, but this does make me more interested in disabled parking though and when I visited my local ASDA this morning there were more cars in the disabled parking area than in the main car park! I reckon about 1 in 5 had a blue badge on display but these guys will be in a for a very rude awakening once the courts start enforcing the disabled parking (Scotland) act in September, which can cover shopping centre car parks, if the shopkeepers want to make use of the legislation. On the plus side, blue badge users in Scotland are not subject to parking time limits as in England, so the next challenge is to catch those mis-using genuine badges or those using forgeries. I would also suggest applying for your own blue badge given your medical condition.

Guys, we need to take the heat out of this and get back to the original question poser. If the insurance was sold as a condition of the sale of the vehicle, it is illegal. no ifs, no buts, its illegal. Remember when travel agents used to insist that their travel insurance was taken in order to make a booking? It was overpriced and often not as good as independent's cover so the practice was outlawed, so was MRPI as a condition of a mortgage offer and latterly PPI as a condition of getting a bank loan. Although its a case of the customer and his wife's word against the seller, the fact that the form was pre-ticked is interesting in itself. The missing KFI is an own goal too and the lack of confirmation from the insurance company seems to make it a hat trick of mis-selling. If you then factor in the "no refund of premiums after the 14 days" clause, on a 4 year policy, this is shaping up as an unfair contract. The burden of proof is on the seller to show that the docs were issued, fully explained and accepted - before the sale was concluded. This is definitely worth pursuing, and for the record, the FSA register shows Perrys Motor Sales is shown as being authorised, which makes them directly responsible under the FSA's rules. I would start by obtaining a copy of Perry's Initial Disclosure Document (IDD) which is confusingly headed as "Key Facts" about our insurance services. It may be worth asking a friend to pick one up to avoid arousing their suspicion. If they have difficulty locating one, or haven't got any that would be a great start, as they can't start a conversation about any kind of insurance until they have handed one to the client. If they are trading as usual without IDD's they are breaking the FSA's rules.

This is good progress. I can't see why an unregulated mortgage should have features that a regulated mortgage doesn't have. If you make it clare that the replacement mortgage must still offer a drawdown facility, and if there are genuinely no charges resulting from the changeover I would go for it. If you cannot have the drawdown facility under the new terms, then stay as you are. One of the huge benefits of new regulated agreements is that the exit fees are much smaller, or even zero, where before they could cost several hundred pounds. The most important thing is that any new agreement should be prefeaced by a KFI (Key Facts Illustration) which details all the features and benefits as well as the costs and any fees payable. This is a very powerful legal document that clearly lays out everything relating to the agreement and which must be matched, line by line by the subsequent Offer of Loan. If there are any discrepancies whatsoever, the agreement cannot be upheld. From your response I would guess that the "new" offer will be on the old terms so your drawdown facility should still be available.

brilliant response, lets hope more people start to think like this. What a turn up eh? Hot drinks without lids.... Well done Tony, keep this going you're getting real support here!

mokeylobster - that's pretty incredible! I knew HOBOS were in the sh*te but charging you £10 for them telephoning you is a bit desperate isn't it? Come to think of it, what a great way to make money. You call someone a few times and charge them £10 a go. With half a dozen staff calling , say 20 punters a day, 5 days a week, that's £6,000/week without having to sell anything. I reckon that could be just what they need to get themselves out of public debt. With all the branches and customers they have it shouldn't take very long either - LOL!! What a cheeky shower of crooks. Have you considered charging them for your phone calls?

I wish you well with this Paul. The agreement HAK refers to is a dogs breakfast of numbers, where the unfortunate seller has incorrectly copied some of the figures from the quotation screen and left others out. The missing elements screw up the whole document. As these are supposed to be checked by "an authorised person" before the client is asked to sign them, either: A) the check wasn't done, or B) the authoriser didn't do their job properly. In either case its totally the bank's fault - so great result!

Any idea how many of this type of agreement are in circulation? I would guess it would have to be hundreds of thousands at least. I can't see RBS not defending this, if the problem is on such a grand scale it would cost them millions. That's not to say I don't wish you well, but I can't imagine this is going to be easy.

thanks pat but we already have electric roller shutter doors operated by key fobs. I think we're suffering from previous owners who kept one or two fobs or actual residents opening the door for their non-resident friends. Either way, we seem to far more cars than parking spaces. I do like the idea of the notice on the side window though, and winter can't be too far away....

Its up to them to prove the loan exists. Without a signed credit agreement I think that might be difficult and if there's no credit agreement, its hard to see how there could be a default as there's nothing to measure it against. I'm not sure you're entirely correct about not falling under the CCA as you're still a consumer after all, but the lack of a signed document makes the outcome far from clear. Perhaps one of our resident experts could advise?

that's because the M6 toll road is a public highway whereas our garage isn't. They can't even touch cars with no tax, they need to wait for them to appear on the highway.

samantha I think you need to get a bit tougher with your ex here. You need his input to be able to get access to Northern Rock, possibly in the form of permission to deal with the account. Considering that you are the one making payments, it seems harsh that you cannot speak to the lender to sort this out particularly as they are arbitrarily taking funds meant for a mortgage and crediting a loan account which just seems plain wrong. The big problem you face is that Northern Rock are following the law correctly with regard to the date sharing aspect so you need to get past that first. Assuming you can overcome this hurdle the next step would be to get the title to the property transferred into your name and the existing mortgage along with it. The main issue here is that N/Rock are not obliged to let you pick up the existing arrangement and may want you to start from scratch and take a new mortgage, with the associated fees valuations etc. I think you need to take professional advice about how to move this forward as you have some issues to overcome, which could work for you if you meet the right people at N/Rock and remind them of the fact that you are aiming to ensure continuity for yourself and for them. As I said, the first step has to be permission to deal directly with the lender. Without that, you're going to have major difficulties with moving forward.

I think K3V1N might not be all he seems. If he was he would know that cheques are not processed by banks (haven't been for many years) but by BACS and are scanned the day they receive them and then sent to storage agents like Iron Mountain. They cannot "throw them away to save space" because under the Cheques Act 1957 requires the paying institution to retain the "instrument of payment" for a minimum period. So although scanned images and data from BACS are used for expediency, under the Act, the actual cheque must still be physically retained and stored securely. As the live data systems have finite memory capacity they tend to keep a maximum of 12 months data which is updated on a monthly basis. They must keep microfiche files to provide data after the live information has been replaced. If they didn't they would have serious issues with the authorities and regulators. As for the ATM trick, if its the one I'm thinking of, that was sorted within a couple of months of the switch from dedicated, own bank only access to allowing customers to use any bank's machine and depended on inefficient links within the network not keeping up with previous transactions. Obviously there was no way that the main banks could permit that situation to continue so it was resolved PDQ. Finally I have difficulty understanding how switching banks helps you get information about a closed account?

I picked up on that point too. In my book the "please" sounds nothing like "you must" or "it is compulsory" and as you say, since they will only send an acknowledgement letter after 4 weeks, you have no idea when its supposed to arrive. Interesting that it says "DVLA will issue" so if they don't, are they falling foul of their own rules? I think inept is too mild a description here it's totally incoherent and illogical. Its also grammatically incorrect, we confirm that we are no longer the registered keeper, they confirm that they have changed their database. Footnote - out of curiosity I used one of the checking systems to see what it said about one of our personal numberplates, whicvh is on retention just now. It was showing as being affixed to the lease car I sent back 18 months ago. This despite me having a new retention certificate for which I'd paid £25 and the car having its original reg number re-affixed and a new matching tax disk bought and paid for by the leasing company. I wonder why nobody has sent me a demand for late tax or SORN?

hi Bob, the point I was making was that we are powerless to get rid of unauthorised parkers in our garage - I checked with the local police HQ (Pitt Street) who tell me they have no powers on private property, its up to us to stop them entering the garage. Once they're inside we can't clamp, move or disable the car, even if its occupying someone's space as there's no recourse to traspass laws for this. As I said its mighty tempting to "accidentaly" break a window but that's really a road to nowhere. Bl**dy frustrating when it happens to be your space though. Have you found out who arranged for the parking monitoring in the first place? If it was te factors they may be exceeding their authority and could be pursued for that.

That's brilliant. I wish my bank did that, I'd love a loan for which I'd not signed anything. I'd love to see them prove that I asked for it as I would insist I thought it was a gift or bonus for being a wonderful customer and see it as a way of making up for the dreadful drop in share value caused by Fred "nothing to do with me" godwit! Presumably you have to sign something to get the staff loan converted into a personal loan? What happens if you don't?

no worries - feedback is always nice.