Guys I have been telling you for some time - tell Ashbourne where to go. Their business model is flawed - they cannot take money from you/be contracted to you if they are not providing you with a good or service. Their relationship is with the gym and the gym has a relationship with you - not directly! A few years ago I took Ashbourne to court and it was ruled that their contracts were worthless pieces of paper and their business practices were unfair. They were instructed to change their business practices immediately and refrain from registering comments with credit reference agencies. This obviously hasn't happened and earlier this year the Office of Fair Trading took Ashbourne to the High Court. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14590195 This BBC link tells you the result - enjoy the read! I hope this is the end of your troubles with this stupid bunch of cowboys!

Right having had a look at this again on the basis that muldy has said Harlands are indeed a payment collector, just like Ashbourne, then these are my comments: On the posting that shows a part copy of the contract: On the first picture (assuming front page of the contract showing the start date, monthly amounts etc): 1. "On joining The Club" .... so 'The Club' has to be Harlands or owned by Harlands for this contract to be enforceable by Harlands. Otherwise they are not a party to this contract. If you pay Harlands for something they need to give you something for that money - ie access to their gym. 2. Point 4 regarding cancellation is clearly an unfair term. All contracts should have a cooling off period, usually 7-14 days. 3. Point 5 sums this contract up. "This contract will become binding upon both parties once it is countersigned". So Harlands are suggesting here they own or manage the gym. This is not the case, so they once again are 'acting on behalf' of the gym - which this paper should specify. Interestingly the date of the "Club" signature is before yours. That could just be an error/confusion of the date at the time. Incidentally who's signature is this - someone employed by the Gym or Harlands? That could be a big factor as to whether they were 'authorised' to do so. By this I mean if the gym are signing contracts on behalf of Harlands then there should be a contract allowing them to do so, and visa versa. This would demonstrate Harlands are merely an agency acting on behalf (and under the instruction of) the gym. What I can't see is the top of the page to see who the parties are. On the reverse of the page (the terms and conditions): Nothing here is stupidly written in such that it would be worth bring up at court. However point 15 is the best paragraph I have seen in a while. The agreement (as mentioned on the front page) is non-cancellable. This would imply on all parties to the contract. However this paragraph says they can terminate on you if you break the rules and will not expect any further money from you. This is a very interesting paragraph. I'm surprised it's been put in if they want to grab your money. I would have thought termination on their part would mean full payment of any outstanding DD payments! At the end of the day, what does the gym itself say about your membership? If they don't mind you not being a member anymore then get them to tell Harlands to stop chasing you. In my opinion this contract is worthless and totally unenforceable. At the end of the day, the gym has control of who uses their gym. They ask someone to manage the admin side of their business and these companies are trying to take over the members and break the relationship. The gyms agree with the agents as they see them as "experts" and it takes away extra work from them. Unfortunately these agents are getting a very bad name, to the cost of the gyms who use them, but as soon as it is make 100% clear to these agents that whilst they may have authorisation to collect money on a gyms behalf, they have no right to undertake default registrations etc without the express written permission/instruction from the gym. I hope that answers your question. In regards to what to do next .... go to court.

Sorry guys but this one is not as clear cut as the Ashbourne cases I am very familiar with. Firstly you are getting confused about cancellation. It states you must make a minimum of 12 direct debit payments, after which time the contract will roll forward on a monthly basis. If you cancel the direct debit after the 12th payment has been collected then the contract terminates. That is very clear in the terms and is to referred to as the 'renewal period'. I'm not familar with Harlands. Are they the gym itself or the payment collector on behalf of the gym? What has been established is that Ashbourne is not a gym and does not own any part of a gym. They are payment collectors who have a relationship with the gym to act on their behalf. Note the wording there! When the gym accepts one of the members can/should not longer be a member they should tell Ashbourne (the payment collector) the relationship has ended. What Ashbourne do is try to convince people that the contract is not with the gym but between the gym user and Ashbourne directly. This is not the case and is not legal on the basis that Ashbourne are not provding anything in return for the consideration (membership fee) paid. So the 'contract' is unenforceable and essentially void. If Harlands do the same as the above then they don't really have a contract with you. However if Harlands are (or own the gym) then I'm afraid the 12 month contract looks fairly solid on my very quick look through it. Like you say it ends in about 6-8 weeks time. As soon as you've made your 12th DD payment then get on the bank and cancel it and the contract falls away. Let me know what Harlands role in all this is and perhaps I can look a little deeper for you.

Just to update everyone. I have spoken with a fellow cagger on the phone about this. I think what we're likely to do in canvass a few lawyers to see if they'd be happy to potentially take on a group action against NR for this product. Typical charges are £250 an hour. I have tried to find an insurance policy to help with the costs but have had absolutely no joy on this front. If you're willing to be part of a group action then please PM me with some contact details (phone and email addresses are best/easiest) and we'll start to put things together and see how many people would like to get this sorted once and for all!

DJDave Don't expect too much from your day in court. It will be you, the Judge and a 'legal representative' acting on behalf of Ashbourne who will not know anything about the running of the business - and will give the standard line of "I'm here to act on behalf of Ashbourne to defend this claim in full". They won't say much else, instead relying on their "statement of fact from the client" to answer any questions. From my day in court with them, this riled the Judge somewhat as I had raised very specific questions which could not be answered. The judge delayed the hearing for another day so that John Wright (MD of Ashbourne) could attend but they plauyed the same trick again and he refused to attend. Don't worry though, sounds like you have everything in hand. One thing - print off the pages from their website - the ones that brag about how they default people. This won't go down with the judge - especially in this economic climate!!

Maynorman2000 - welcome to the world of Ashbourne! This one appears very straightforward. Take a look at your 'contract'. Does it say "Club Name: xxxxx" and then in the terms something like "you are a member of the club named overleaf."??? If it does then how can the contract say "if we do not provide the facilities or the services " ??? Perhaps ask Ashbourne exactly what facilities or services they are providing to you!? The answer is none. They are a payment collector acting on behalf of the (now ceased trading) gym. You should tell them where to go with the threat of court action should they register a default against you. No doubt they will ignore you and do that anyway. As soon as they do, issue a court proceeding against them and get it removed and request provable damages. Best of luck - not that you'll need much!

Bulbie The fact that they have charged you £10 admin fee when your (and again I use the term very loosely!) 'contract' states £5.50 is a clear breach of contract. If you have not already sent the letter, I'd get that in there too. I'm assuming they'll just fob you over like the other 17,000 people they deal with in this way so my advice is again to issue small claims proceedings against them. This advice goes to anyone else in a similar position. One thing you could try and get is something in writing from the gym itself saying that you don't use the gym (see if they can issue you with the date you last visited) and that they are happy for you to no longer be a member of their gym. By obtaining this, it goes hand-in-hand with the fact that you are contracted to the gym and not Ashbourne. Should you get to court, show the letter and the so-called contract to the judge - he/she will have to ask Ashbourne to prove the contract is enforceable which they cannot do. The case will then go against Ashbourne. Good luck

Ian Yes I'm happy to exchange numbers. I will PM you shortly.

Jotty DON'T PAY! Take them to Court. There's a few people on here all in the same boat. Get a few legal proceedings going against these jokers and get them out of business. See other threads for details.

Bulbie What are you doing? Firstly lets take the fact that I have taken these guys to Court and wiped the floor with them - see separate threads that I have put up here. Second your 'contract'. Lets take a look - particularly at the 'terms and conditions' page you have scanned. You (and others) will hopefully start to see where this 'contract' starts to fall apart. My advice to ANYONE in dispute with these guys is take them to Court! OK: Term 1. Membership. If you sign this agreement, you agree to become a member of the club referred to overleaf. So is the 'Club' Ashbourne Management Services Ltd? NO! It's Energy Zinc (? - not clear in picture). So your contract is with them NOT ASHBOURNE! Term 3. Having a non-cancellable contract is an unfair term. This cannot be argued. In this term they say "nothing you say or write to the club and nothing the club says or writes to you will bind AMSL". Show that line to a Judge and this will be laughed at. Who is your agreement with again? Oh yes the Club - who are clearly described here as such and Ashbourne are an agent for the Club - which means the Club is in charge and if they say something to you then of course it IS binding on Ashbourne! Term 4. What'st he £10 fee you have been charged for non or delayed payment? I can see this says £5.50. Get your money back! Need I go on? Tell these guys where to go - give them 7 days to drop chasing you and accept the contract is null and void on the above grounds. Failing that, issue court proceedings against them and show this joke of a 'contract' to the Judge. Best of luck

CSC1 In short (and to directly reply your PM to me) I have a laywer who has stated their is definitely a case for NR to answer in court. The problem however is that the case costs will run into several tens of thousands of pounds as NR will no doubt want to defend to the death in order to avoid paying out potentially tens of millions of pounds in write-offs and compensation claims. The lawyer has told me to find an insurance policy that will cover a legal claim against a bank - and I've hit a brick wall. No insurance policy with legal cover will pay the costs of taking a financial institution to court! If anyone knows of one please let me know! To answer your other question, I would definitely be interested in taking up a group litigation process against NR and I think this will be my next course of action in absence of insurance as the costs can be split several ways.

George I am currently testing the legality of the unsecured loan element of these mortgages. There are lots of unfair terms which may lead to the agreement being unenforceable. Collecting a single payment for two separate agreements is one area under scrutiny as you have found you cannot withhold part payment when disputing either agreement. I have a team of lawyers putting a case together at the moment and will of course post updates as and when I get them.

Right, lots of people having problems with Ashbourne on here. Fear not, this is what you need: The MD of Ashbourne is a guy called JOHN WRIGHT. I took Ashbourne to court a couple of years back and they were told their contracts are absolutely worthless on the grounds they are a payment collection agent for the gym, and as they do not give you direct access to the gym then they can't do anything like default your credit file without the express written permission/request of the gym itself. What you will probably find is that the gym you belong to know absolutely nothing about what's going on with you and Ashbourne and in anycase will have been told by Ashbourne to keep out of it! I took them to Cambridge County Court under claim 8QT09368. In the Judgement they were ordered to pay me costs, compensation and remove the default forthwith. I filed this against them: I claim against the Defendant for: (a) a breach of contract by the Defendant under Clause 7 of the terms and conditions which they assert do apply to the contract; (b) a breach of duty of care owed to myself in that knowing that the release of personal information to a credit reference agency would affect my financial standing. Releasing such information in breach of contract and/or confidence, such information being incorrect. © the costs of bringing this claim to Court and for the Court to consider awarding damages for the breach. (d) that I am entitled to an order requiring the Defendant to remove, at their own expense, any reference to my as being a bad debtor in any credit reference, or other agency, that they have named me to be registered. They used Williamson & Soden solicitors based in Solihull. The guy acting for them was Stephen Rowe (a Partner of the firm). He is fully aware their contracts, in the eyes of the Cambridge County Court Judge, are worthless and unenforceable. If you are getting letters from this firm then write back and remind them of my case! I wrote to him on August 2008 (after they sent me a settlement cheque) and in it I said: "I hope that your client will address their business position on their current and future business relationships to endure they understand their 'contracts' are not valid in the guise understood by your client on the simple grounds that your client does not provide a gym service and is simply a payment collector on behalf of the gym (who provide the services to their member). This was made very clear in the Judgement made against your client and I trust your client shall make the necessary arrangements to ensure no other individuals have to face potential financial difficulties and take this course of action against them." Obviously someone hasn't done their job somewhere along the line as it sounds things are exactly the same two years on! You may also like to know that I managed to get a phone call with John Wright (the MD) pretenting to be a gym wanting them to manage the memberships for me. He confirmed that Ashbourne "work as an extension to the gyms customer service department" and Ashbournes purpose was to "act as the gyms agent" with the first point of contact for members to always by the gym itself. He went on to say hi charges £1.35 per member per month as the admin fee to gyms, regardless of the number of members a gym has. I paid £94 at the outset as a joining fee to my gym for a joint membership which was equivalent to the £1.35 fee for them - ie they are paid upfront. [This is calculated as £1.35 x 2 people x 36 months = £97.20]. I hope this information helps someone. Best thing to do if I was in your situation arguing against them ... give Ashbourne a call, ask for John Wright by name pretending to be new business for them. You'll get straight to the man himself. Then let him know your true position and remind him he's lost in Court before over his 'contracts'. Take it all the way to Court - refer to my case if needs be. I'll keep digging for the paperwork (which I think I may have thrown out now) but this is the info I found on my computer. Any questions, please feel free to drop me a line!

Williams101. Thanks for your info. The one thing I've been told by the various people looking into my particular case is don't do anything rash! I'm ok for time at the moment, I still have a few months grace before my fixed-term comes to an end. I see you're selling up ... I hope that's to move for other reasons than to get rid of the mortgage product alone. It would appear yours has already come to an end. The one point you may have on your side is this .... have a look at your unsecured loan agreement. Does it say something like: "So long as you remain a borrower with Northern Rock under this agreement, the following interest rate(s) will apply: * a fixed rate of x.xx% until [date] followed by *a variable rate which is guaranteed to be below Northern Rock's Standard Variable Rate ..." This appears on my agreement under the Other Financial Information section. If you are charged the SVR then your agreement is in breach as they are not honouring the 'guranteed below' SVR. Incidentally my premium rate is 5% whereas you quote 8%. When was your agreement dated and what is the total loan amount? I am hoping to hear back from a large legal team looking at all the issues I have raised with them later this week. As soon as I have any comments back (positive or negative) then I will post them here. The murmours so far appear positive that there are several points to argue over the legality of these agreements and whether they are unfair terms (ie the hike in premium of the rates). The most concrete comment I have received is that if NR try to charge me the SVR on the loan element after the fixed term has ended, as opposed to the 'guaranteed below' rate then this would constitute a breach in the agreement and I could withold payment until the rate is adjusted. The problem here is that the payment is collected as a single direct debit therefore I am not in control of the payments ... if I cancel the DD then I would breach my mortgage repayments. This is potentially a very serious legal issue, similar to that of the PPI miselling cases of the last few years. Of course, you are already in this position as you are being charge 4.79% for both elements (I assume) but your loan element should be at a lesser rate if your agreement has the above mentioned clause. There could be interesting times ahead for NR and it's many Together customers!

Just a quick update on this. I've had my 'fixed-sum loan agreement' looked at by a couple of legal advisors. All agree this has several points to argue and are looking into whether anyone has actually taken NR to court over this to mark against any such existing test case. Interestingly, all of the advisors I've spoken to claim they have had "an influx" of people questioning the legality of these agreements so it could be the case that many people are considering legal action against NR. If you have one of these Together Mortgages with NR, I'd really like to hear from you - whether you have already looked into raising a complaint or not.

pokinthruboxers I'll dig out what I have on it and post it here in the next couple of days. I would say that the OFT court claim against Ashbourne will probably go in your favour .... I very much doubt they'd want to be fighting all of their 'customers' and the OFT. In any case, they were clearly told in my hearing that their 'contracts' were worthless by my Judge.

Again, 1ManRiot see other posts regarding Ashbourne. Your yellow form has terms on it that cannot be enforced as the contractual relationship cannot be between Ashbourne and yourself with out the gym being a party. You use the gym which is not owned or managed by Ashbourne and they therefore may collect payments on behalf of the gym, but not make decisions on the gyms behalf. Speak to the gym - they will tell you they have no influence on Ashbourne as they run the contract. Their (Ashbourne's) business model is flawed and the court has agreed this. Good luck.

Please read my reply regarding this company under thread Penny18 v Ashbourne - http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/gyms-health-clubs/262454-penny18-ashbourne-management-gym.html#post2978062 Your contract is worthless and has been proven in court. Ashbourne are a payment collection service acting on behalf of gyms. Your relationship is with the gym itself and Ashbourne cannot party themselves to the contract by means of a direct relationship to you.

Hi I had the pleasure last year of taking Ashbourne Management Company Ltd to court. After cancelling my contract with the gym, Ashbourne gave the usual heavy approach of demanding that the contract of 3 years is fulfilled. In short I told them that the contract I signed was on Ashbourne headed paper and it described they provided me access to a specific gym. In court, I argued that as Ashbourne do not own or run any gyms themselves they are merely acting as an agent on behalf of the gym of which I am a member. After a couple of minutes thinking about this, the Judge agreed that Ashbourne were no part of the contract and threw the case out. As they had put a mark on my credit file they were judged to remove it within 7 days, and compensate me for the damages this caused. I ended up with a nice fat cheque from Ashbournes solicitors. Oh and the point of me making this comment on here was that I argued to the court that Ashbourne should be made to write to all of its "customers" and inform them that they have no legal agreement as they are simply a payment management company whose contractual relationship is with their real customers (the gyms!) and not the gym users. The court agreed but said it could not be enforced as part of my hearing. Of course Ashbourne decided not to take the courts advice on this matter and is still trying fob people off saying they have a legal agreement! My advice - go to court - argue this case. I'm happy to provide the court details I have on this if required.

If you have a Northern Rock Together mortgage, the one that is a mortgage account plus an additional unsecured loan, then I’d like to hear from you. Like you, I have this product and it the fixed rate product soon comes to an end. I’ve spent the past few weeks reading up on what is best to do with this ie remortgage or just sit on the SVR. However, on reading the terms of the fixed-sum loan agreement I’ve found a few areas on the contract which are clearly debatable in a court and am currently preparing a case. In order to strengthen the claims, I am keen to find others in the same or similar position. Here are the points I have: 1. This is not a concern as it plays in my favour, but the loan is for £30,000. It is unsecured and at the time of the agreement (late 2005) the Consumer Credit Act 1974 covered agreements upto £25,000. However this contract is a “Fixed-sum loan agreement regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974”. As this wording appears clearly at the head of the page, I am informed by numerous legal advisors that it cannot be argued that this agreement, despite not formally required to be covered at the time, is indeed covered by the Act and must fulfil the requirements of the Act in full, therefore: 2. The information regarding the terms of the loan must be clear. The document clearly sets out the amount borrowed and the term together with the APR percentage and the total charge for credit. However, it does not display the monthly payment amount, nor does it display the total amount payable. These missing areas fail to meet the CCA requirements. The view is that it should have stated the fixed payments for the first 60 months (eg £165 per month) and then stated a monthly figure based on the SVR at the time with “subject to change” next to it. Likewise the total charge for credit is incorrect as it is based on the SVR of 6.59% and not taking into account the 5 year fixed rate percentage. 3. At the foot of the first page, there is a paragraph which states “If you are not or cease to be a Borrower with us under the Mortgage, (or transfer to a new mortgage product with us, or enter into a new mortgage with us) a variable rate which will be 5.00% above our Standard Variable Rate will apply to this agreement.” I have shown this clause to a number of legal advisors and all agree this is an unfair term under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999. The fact that when my five-year fixed-rate term comes to an end, regardless of keeping my business with Northern Rock I shall be penalised by 5% interest. 4. On speaking with Northern Rock recently about what happens to the loan contract at the end of the five-year fixed-rate term I am told (by at least three NR employees) that it will revert to the Standard Variable Rate (SVR). However the interest rate stated on the loan agreement states “So long as you remain a borrower with Northern Rock under this agreement, the following Interest Rate(s) will apply: a fixed rate of 5.79% until 1 January 2011 followed by a variable rate which is guaranteed to be below Northern Rock’s Standard Variable Rate, which is currently 6.59%, for the remainder of the term of the loan. Please note that the payments illustrated for this period of the loan, are based on Northern Rock’s Standard Variable Rate.” If I am reverted to the SVR at the end of the fixed term, this would be a breach of contract as this clause clearly states that it will be “guaranteed to be below” the SVR. As I stated at the head of this posting I am currently instructing solicitors to draw up a complaint to NR regarding this contractual points and a follow up complaint to the Financial Ombudsman, however this complaint would have a much better grounding if others are in, or about to be in, the same position as myself and the complaint was from a group of customers instead of just one. I’d also be interested in hearing from anyone that has already complained to NR directly or indirectly through legal advisors regarding these points – not in the case of agreements not signed by the customer. I look forward to hearing from some of you in the same boat as me in due course.