I’d be tempted as advised above to apply to the court for it to be struck out as it will then compel either the court or Lowell to get their act together. Seems you have done all thats expected and should be doing the courts work for them.

Letter of claim sent re the home visit fees , kept it all fairly simple as per the guidelines, so lets wait for response.

Just a quick question re the letter of claim, I have read the advice from the link and not sure how much I need to include. I presume its a "beefed up" version of a LBA, so do I just include a letter outlining the brief details of the claim, a statement of the debt and response address. Or do I need to include any statutory documents as well.

Started a draft, but not looked at it since Sunday. I will be looking at it again in next day or so and get on with things.

Yes looks great, I will get a draft done over the weekend and post it up

Can someone give me a bit of advice re the POC for my intended reclaim of home visit fees. None were agreed to as above and no appointments were ever argued.

Yes noted, which is why I want to just take it a step at a time. Not afraid of court or losing, but don't want to go in half cocked or lose my shirt in the process. I am mindful that in my opinion Rooftop read stuff on here, but there is a financial point when its not worth them defending a claim. That's the point I need to find I guess.

I did note this bit in the Redstone case that may weaken my claim slightly, but like all things it open to interpretation :- Charging for field counsellor visits in full to some customers who had not been properly informed of the timing of the visit and/or of their right to refuse or cancel the visit; or who should have been charged a reduced rate cancellation fee; What I cant find are any threads or cases of people being successful with claims to provide guidance, there are a few that start off with similar detail but have not been updated in ages.

Yes I saw that, and its what started me thinking. I don't think the post date of the original thread was then as I am sure I read it last year sometime. Does it make my argument stronger and could I claim back to 2007 ?

The Debt Counselling companies where NCI prior to 2013 and then DMS after. Looking through the paperwork, NCI charged £94 in 2008 but appeared to have only been paid £54 maybe because it was a non contact visit on both occasions. And DMS charge £60 which is on an invoice in the paperwork so I can see any evidence of Rooftop or JP profiting from these. Its hard to assess any interest on the fees due to the elaborate way they account for them, looking at statements prior to 2015 for example I don't see any being charges, however on the most recent ones they now supply which list only the "default fees" which includes all the fees they have charged over the years I note they add £9 interest every month. Its difficult to work our how much of this £9 is for the Home Visit charges. The 2 £94 are from 2008, and we didn't ask but as explained above I think they must have charged us a straight fee of £94 based on the visit going ahead and then refunded part of it when they found out it hadn't from the companies themselves. Its my intention to go for the visit fees plus 8% which is £635 as a starting point, and if successful go for the admin fees bit by bit.

So had a clear my head 24hrs on this, Hopefully you can see in post #54 that I have questioned the charges applied re home visits. There are many more charges but I am going for the easier ones first to keep the figures within manageable amounts to avoid further charges etc. You are 100% correct, Rooftop and JP Morgan did request the visits using 3rd party companies. I have copies of the instructions they sent and the subsequent letters. The ones from RP & JP to me just inform us that they will be employing the companies to visit, the only mention of when and how is where they say that we have 7 days to contact them to cancel this course of action. There is nothing in any of the correspondence from any party to indicate a date and time. As far as we are concerned the visits where all unannounced and as such didn't take place although we were subsequently charged. As far as my application to the county court, it will based on the fact that we have been charged for the visits, ones we didn't request nor did we have any firm appointments or notification when they would happen and as such we would always be unable to meet with them. As the visits were entirely at the behest of Rooftop and previously JP Morgan then in my opinion it is for them to stand the cost unless they are fully carried out with consent of the customer.

So had a long rambling letter back from Rooftop about the home visit charges, they basically upheld part of my complaint in not providing a couple of documents re the visits, both of which don’t really say anything. They are still saying it’s my fault for being in arrears and not cancelling the visits. The charges are increasing and they now call them and the arrears “default charges”. It’s obvious they are reading the posts in my opinion and to be honest I am thoroughly fed up with it all. The only way to try and get something back is now court, I have exhausted all other avenues. I will have a few days to reflect and would welcome advice, but now sick of playing postal tennis with this bunch of crooks.

SAR being done and I will send, thank you makes sense. Below is a copy of the home visit list, the £94 was the charged levied twice in 2008 but on each occasion as they failed to speak to us they refunded part of it £35.25 leaving the actual figure I am claiming of £58.75. We had another letter from them yesterday, the one where they add the arrears (which is wrong as its £700 to much as they haven't allowed for the payment on the 26th), and then add all the fees charges since 2008 so as to somehow shock us into paying. In the past this has been a pre cursor in the past to yet another raft of repossession letters, so we will await next chapter. I have attached that also for your info .IMG_20190402_0001.pdf

Yes appreciate its getting a bit complicated now so :- However, you haven't told me how much they charge you for each visit – whether that visit took place or not. I have highlighted the charges re visits in red on this claims sheet taken from statements.CISheet redv101.xls You say that they have started a separate account for fees and charges, but when you make a mortgage payment, does this go to reduce the mortgage or does it go to reduce the fees or do they simply take the single payment and distribute it according to their own preference? The mortgage is interest only, so mortgage isnt reduced and neither are the charges, we currently overpay to reduce the arrears. The charges account is seperate and only increases with charges every month, this is why I need to challenge this bit. I notice that in the details above, and the first table there is a figure of about four grand for fees and charges et cetera. In the second table there is also a figure for about four grand for closing fees and costs. Presumably this relates to the same item even though the figures are slightly different? If that's right then in the second table they have taken the four grand and they've added it to the mortgage arrears and presumably to the outstanding mortgage to arrive at a figure of £171K. On that basis it seems to me that although they are itemising the fees and charges et cetera separately – at the end they are treating it as part of the outstanding mortgage balance. Could that be correct? Yes the £4k figure is made up of charges plus the interest £4386 + £159 . They like to quote it as a total figure £5-6k inc arrears when they remind us that they could repossess but is seperate. Do we have any idea who the field agents are? Are they employed by the mortgage company or are they separate contractors? Once again, we don't have any evidence of the instruction given to them. The field agents work for companies called NCI and DMS as per the reports agentvisits.pdf

Cant confirm if visit took place for any of them as we have never spoken to them. The possibilities are all that, we are not vulnerable and wouldn't be able to apply to any scheme. But as any conversation never took place how can this be a simple yes or no ?, at best the agent has guessed but at worst he has lied.