You are probably right, it probably is lottery chances but she's having a crack at me for not guessing...and I don't know how to protect myself in future from exactly the same thing! How am I -or anyone else -supposed to guess that someone with a "wife" is a woman - or that someone with a "husband" is a man? I try to move with the times and any advice that protects me from making the same mistake again would be much appreciated...as would how the heck do I apologise? My first response it that it is "presumptuous" to assume that I would know...but I don't want to fan the fire...

Hi, I realise this is somewhat off the usual CAG beat but here goes... I received an email from someone who signed off P Smith. The email refers to "my wife". I replied "Dear Mr Smith" and, to my absolute horror, got an email back saying I was presumptuous for assuming the writer was "Mr" as, in fact, the writer was "Mrs" and in a same sex relationship. Whoops! There was no indication in their email address as to whether P was for, say, Philip or Pandora. If it had been signed Pandora Smith I would have replied to Ms Smith. If it had be signed "P Smith (Mrs)" I would have replied to Mrs Smith. How are people supposed to know guess that they are replying to someone who is in a same sex relationship? Does it mean that all correspondence (such as the above) should now be addressed to "Dear Sir / Madam"? Thoughts appreciated...

So very right but the govt and judiciary will do nothing for reasons including a. banks bribe them by paying into party coffers b. banks blackmail them that they will leave the country and pay even less tax than they pay now - with their tax avoidance schemes c. politicians like to go to banking jobs after their political careers - very lucrative d. hospitality perks from banks

Signed and the very best of luck Richard. Having been through the mill with OH on our own case I know just how stacked against you this is as the judiciary prefers to believe the spoken word of the lawyers over the written evidence of the LiP. Best wishes, BB

OK 42man, This is very helpful. Thank you. I'll do some research on this and incorporate it into my skeleton. Fingers crossed...

I don't have a solicitor acting for me on this. The creditor did have an undertaking form my solicitor who wsa acting for me on another matter. I have always acted on my own in this case but the Bank knew how to get in touch with me through the solicitor etc as they had an undertaking from him. At the moment I am working on my skeleton in response to the application. Yes, what I want is closure. This has dragged on for too long and I am coping with anumber of High Court claims for huge amounts of money which this is totally disrupting. Also I think this has come to the stage of being vexatious as the order they are no trying to get reinstated / varied is more than 18 months old. At one point they put so much pressure on me that I ended up in hospital. What is a bankruptcy restraining order? How do I get that.

thank you

Around £180k. My point is - the June 2011 local Court's Order said " ...The petition and the Respondent's application be adjourned generally with liberty to restore; if no request to restore is made by 4.00pm on ...September 2011 then the petition and the Respondent's application shall stand struck out." They did not request restoration at the local Court, going back to London instead. Then when they realised their error (in Jan / March 2012 they wrote to the local Court who replied "As far as this Court is concerned matters stand struck out…”. They did nothing till December 2012 when they issued an application to have matters reinstated. My point is the original Order was made in June 2011. They had to apply to vary by September 2011. Their Applicaion was made in time but was made to the wrong court. Then they gor a hearing - again at the wrong Court. This was vacated. My argument is essentially that they failed to vary in September 2011 and despite knowing this they have waited 15 months to make the application to reinstate. This is contrary to CPR 3.9 (I only know about it because they are arguing that they have complied with this rule)

No she doesn't have to attend - most people don't bother if they can't do anything to stop it from happening and it saves them a lot of stress and unpleasantness. What she should do is get all her papers ready to send to the local Official Receiver, make sure she fully complies with everythihg he asks for and she should be out the other side within the year. But don't turn up because the lawyers acting for the other side will behave like vermin - which is their "raison d'etre" - and they won't have that pleasure if she isn't there. Good luck to her for the future. It sounds as though she's little left to lose- but that the PO are biting their nose off to spite their face- this is costing them quite a lot for no return. Vicious, spiteful.

It is the bank. They have instructed solicitors.

Hi, I wonder if anyone can help me here. Briefly a creditor petitioned for my bankruptcy in London. I had the claim moved to my local court where it was allocated a new claim number. In June 2011 the bankruptcy hearing in my LOCAL court was vacated by consent between the parties. The Order says "1. The hearing listed for ... June 2011 be vacated. 2. The petition and the Respondent's application be adjourned generally with liberty to restore; if no request to restore is made by 4.00pm on ...September 2011 then the petition and the Respondent's application shall stand struck out." The next I heard the Creditor had applied (using the old London claim number) to the LONDON county court - despite it having been moved to my local court - asking for the order to be varied to read "...restore by 4.00pm on ... December 2011." The London Court, though it no longer had jurisdiction, duly ordered: 1. The order dated......2011 be varied to read .. December 2011 in pace of .. September 2011 2. Any party affected by the order may apply within 7 days of service to have this order varied, set aside or revoked. The Application must be made at the Court where the matter is held". The Claimant then "restored" the hearing to .. May 2012 - at the London Court. Again it was using the old London claim number. I only found out about any of this when the Claimant sent me the London court’s Order and notice of hearing date. I kicked up about this as I had not been notified anything was going on and in any event it was going on in the wrong court. The claimant then wrote to my local court who replied in January 2012 “Please find enclosed a copy of the Order of .. June 2011 stating that if no application to restore is made by 22 September 2011 then the petition will stand struck out. If you would like to apply to reinstate this matter you will to make the appropriate application and pay the court fee..” The claimant wrote to the court again and in March 2012 the court replied, “This court has had no involvement with the orders of the London Court which are certainly not on this Court’s file. As far as this Court is concerned matters stand struck out…” I hear nothing then, in December 2012, I get an application to restore the petition. Bear in mind that my local court’s Order, striking out the petition, was made in June 2011, some 18 months previously. The Claimant admits that they put the wrong claim numbers on their application and cause the matter to be sent back to London but claim that this delay has not prejudiced me… I reckon it has because 18 months passed before they woke-up and started trying to reinstate at the correct court. Any suggestions as to how I deal with this? The other “little” points I should mention is that my application (that was struck out at the same time of the petition) was made because they had not served the statutory demand on me - I never received it. At the time they knew who my solicitor was, knew my mobile phone number etc but made no effort to contact me by phone or my solicitor. They lied to the court and said they had no way of getting in touch with me so were allowed substituted service. They then did not serve the bankruptcy petition on me - again misleading the court into allowing substituted service - though the solicitor and mobile phone number were still current. Having failed to serve with the SD or Petition they did a search and found the address I had been living at when they didn’t serve the SD… it goes on and on. This is a bank and they have a judgment for the debt - I dispute the validity of judgment but that's a whole other story. Durig this time I have been trying to negotiate an agreement with the Bank but the solicitors have refused to set up a meeting with them... But these points in italics are not the ones I need answered right this moment… The question I really need answered now is can they get away with reinstating the claim some 18 months after the order / 15 months after the deadline in the order? At what stage can I get the judge to say “sorry bank, you’ve had your chance and fluffed it, stop harassing this person. END OF.” ?

Today I bought a Freeview+ box from Argos. It scanned Ok but I can't get some of the channels I can get with my old Freeview box. The guarantee says I can't take it back unless it's faulty. I've checked on the Freeview site and the channels I am missing are shown as receivable i my postcode. So am I able to take the darn thing back and say it's faulty or not fit for purpose? If I can't return it and get a refund I suppose I will have to get an aerial booster and cross my fingers that it does the trick. Can anyone help with this. What I really want to do is get a refund and start again rather than have to lay out even more money - with no certainty that it'll ever work/get as many channels as my old Freeview box.

Thanks Locutus, very helpful pointers. I looked at Plusnet but they were offering a download speed of 1.5Mb which seems very slow. The dongle I'm using at the moment (3 Mobile) goes in and out of service throughout the day - I log on and have the full 5 bars and it drops down to one ad then goes back up ad down. Sometimes it drops off completely. It seems to be worst at around 9am, 1pm and 5pm - 7.30pm - 3 mobile assure me it's nothing to do with other users - I'm no techie but I'm not convinced as it coincides with getting to work, lunchbreak, going/getting home...

I have recently moved and Martin's Money Tips said TalkTalk were a good bet. I've been using a 3Mobile dongle but it's slow and £15 for 3GB/month so the TalkTalk offer seemed like a good idea at the time (though it turned out that it was a very, very short time that it seemed like a good idea and a very, very long and frustrating and expensive day trying to get it sorted out).

It seems TalkTalk don't like people who put up a fuss...having spent much of the day trying to sort out the order /installation date I finally got through to someone who told me that TalkTalk would/could not honour the agreed £17.75 monthly fee (£14.25 line rental + call package - free broadband) but that it would cost £14.25 + £15.75 for the broadband. I said in that case I want to cancel the order. They put me through to another operative who said that I was in an area for free broadband and that it would cost £17.25 p.m. and they would credit me with £30.00 for the inconvenience of the late installation. I accepted on condition that they stuck to the later installation date. They went to check and when they came back the story had changed again - they said actually the local exchange can't support TalkTalk so we can't do your installation at all...which sounds dead odd to me as I'm in a relatively new estate (built 6 years ago) , on the outskirts of a large town in Kent, with a load of brand new office buildings across the street. Seems they can't walk the walk let alone talk the talk...

OMG I wish I had never picked up the phone to talktalk. I agreed to take their service, agreed a date for the engineer (17.10.12) which I was unhappy about because it's so far away (four weeks). Two minutes later I recieved an email stating the engineer would visit on 7.11.12! I cannot get hold of anyone at TalkTalk unless I call a premium rate number from my [02] mobile so I tried the Sales Dept again (I have found a landline number for them) and they refused to help, refused to put me through to the correct dept, refused to let me speak to a manager and said "you can talk to me all day but I am not going to do anything to help". Fan blooming tastic... The confirmatory email said I had asked for the child protection to be switched off - I had specifically asked for it to be switched on - actually I had said it two or three times. The subsequent email sent for me to set up the online account does not work because "the link has expired" and I cannot get a new link becuase my bank account number is not recognised. Talk about poor service.

In my experience when you sign up you agree to give one full terms notice. I am a parent, not a school, but have seen many contracts wtih independent schools with the same timeframe in their "notice of withdrawing child" clause. And it seemed, from what the OP was saying, that they'd probably signed a contract with one terms notice required. The best thing the OP can do, and any other parent who finds themselves in a situation whereby they need to withdraw their child from an independent school, is read and make sure they understand the contract - and if it says you have to give a full terms notice then, if you don't give the requisite notice and don't pay for that term in lieu of notice, you should not be surprised if the school threatens legal proceedings to recover the money they have lost by holding the place open for your child only to find your child isn't going to use it.

For what it's worth, and I realise it's late advice and it's not what you want to hear, but moaning myrtal is right. When you sign up with independent schools you agree to give one whole terms notice. So if you decide to leave the school in August you will have to pay the Autumn term fees. End of. Tough. (I'm a parent who's been through this, not a school!)

Thanks for your help Gaston. Much appreciated. BB

Many thanks for this. They are assessed the Order says "that the Defendant do pay the Claimant's costs asessed at [and the figure]." So if I understand you correctly there's no need for a CCJ - I should just go straight ahead with a Warrant of Execution? I'm eligible for remission of Court fees (Application notices etc). Do you know if I can get a remission for this?

I have a High Court Order that the other side pay my assessed costs. The Order was made several weeks ago. Under CPR they have 14 days to pay. They have not, despite reminders. The case is on-going. Do I have to go to small claims to get a judgment and then set about enforcing or do I go straight for a fi fa? Thanks for any input.

If you have judgment to say that the Defendant owes you more than £750 (and I assume it says he owes you a specific amount) what about serving him with a statutory demand? This is a nasty thing to have served on you as it can lead to a bankruptcy petition so if the Defendant has the money he should pay up. It's probably not worth doing a statutory demand if you don't intend to follow through with a petition should he not pay up. IMHO it is not worth serving a Petition if they don't have the dosh because it costs a bit and you'll just join a list of creditors.

Oops! Many thanks citizenB

I am in the middle of a court case against an individual. Earlier this year we were ordered to disclose by list by a certain date. Both parties did this though the Defendant's list is distinctly lacking - running to around 20 docs (and they have control of the files) against mine of around 1,500... The day after receiving D's list I asked for copies of various documents. I heard nothing. Around 3 weeks later I asked again. Nothing. I issued an N244. The judge made an "unless order" that D had to supply the docs within 7 days. At that hearing the judge also ordered D to pay my costs (around £200) in having to go to court over disclosure. I received most of the docs within the timeframe but there some missing furthermore D said in his covering letter that he had destroyed a whole load of other, vital files (that he had not disclosed, that he knew I needed and that he knew would be ordered to be disclosed). I issued a further N244 as D had not delivered all the docs and had admitted to destroying vital files. The judge refused to strike out D because at the same time as sending me the docs he had written to the Court saying he had complied... However the judge has now ordered D to file a witness statement and statement of truth that he has complied with the previous Orders and CPR. Apparently I can cross-examine D when the case comes to trial... The costs of that application are "in the case". In the meantime the payment in respect of the costs ordered has passed and I have not received it. As the judge has made it quite clear that he is not going to follow through his "unless" orders (because he will be bombarded with interlocutary applications from the other side") what are the strongest sanctions that he could reasonably make that would still enable the case to go to trial but severly hamper D (who won't comply with anything)? I'd be very grateful for any assistance with this. Thanks bb

The call centre numbers I called were 0871 882 8208 and 0871 882 0000 - they were hopeless, refused to help, forgot to mention the policy had been cancelled etc. The complaints people can be contacted by email at [email protected] and the telephone number I have for Yvonne Seage, Complaint Executive, is 0800 118 1695 ext 835705. bb