If it is defended it will be transferred to your local county court.

Ok - settle down and read the FAQs in detail. All your answers are there - and best of luck with it

Love the bit - "you have 40 days in which to comply" - Is that said with an "Arnie" voice? I'd go through all the statement pages. A cup of tea, a quite room and a highlighter pen and a calculator - took me about an hour to go through my 6 years worth. Best of luck with your claim

Well done - so nice to see that you got it back after only one letter - thats the way to do it

Best of luck

Best of luck. Hope you get it

The second letter is your letter before action. You have given them 14 days to repay you saying that you will issue proceedings if they don't pay within that timescale. Don't wait for them. Stick to YOUR timetable. Next step is a claim on the money claim online website the day after the 14 days expires. Best of luck

Ok today is the last day for NW to file a defence having acknowledged my claim for approaching 5k Since the MCOL appears to refuse to let us enter judgment online for days after the time limit has expired I'm sending the request for judgment to them by post today so it is in their mail bag tomorrow morning and will hopefully be actioned as soon as it is possible to do so. Maybe the court will also have the defence in its mailbag today or tomorow - We'll see Who knows what I might find in my post at home when I get in from work !!

Also I dont think a bankrupt can issue any legal proceedings in his own name whilst undischarged - he would need the consent of the trustee/official receiver

Nothing wrong with having alternative arguments to put to the judge.

Check the library - its all there

If I recall correctly ( the memory is a bit fuzzy on this) I am fairly sure that since the Cheques Act 1992 (which amended the Bills of Exchange Act 1882) a bank cannot be held negligent if it pays a post-dated cheque on first presentation.

I assume the payments were made by DD? If you are able to show that you definitely gave the bank instructions to cancel the direct debit then under the direct debit guarantee they are obliged to refund all money wrongly taken after that instruction was given. Didn't you get insurance renewal notices each year telling you what the premium would be for the following year? If so wasn't that a clue?

Yes it does. I claimed the charges on an old HP agreement I had with Capital Bank - they paid up in full as soon as I issued proceedings and it was nearly £1000 Don't be shy - JDI (just do it) !!

Yep, my statements from Nat West were delivered in a thin brown envelope that inevitably spilled its contents all over the post office floor. It was left outside my front door in a clear plastic bag from the post office secured with a plastic clip.

Not quite sure what you mean Dixie60 - are you saying the money wasn't yours? BF - it is long established that if you receive money as a result of a mistake it must be returned. End of. No estoppel or anything else. Its not possible to construct a valid legal argument that allows you to keep money you got in your bank acount by mistake. Sazz's example is a classic (in the sense of happens all the time). Money received by mistake and spent. You can't rely on the error made by someone else to say you dont have to repay money that wasn't yours and that you spent.

I think the point is that the OFT takes the view that if the bank says that the charges are for a service, that doesn't make it so. It says that those charges should be viewed as disguised penalties where they arise in relation to events of default - i.e. the very occurrences that the banks currently charge for and which charges the banks might claim are service charges. I dont think you have to prove they are penalties - the circumstances in which they arise and are applied and the events that trigger them are the key factors - the names they are called are secondary. The fact that the banks T&Cs might be unclear as to how the charges are decribed, or what label is attached to them, or don't actually mention breaking the agreement, will go against them anyway. In any consumer contract not negotiated at arms length any uncertainty as to meaning of clauses will always be interpreted in favour of the consumer. In my view the charges are penalties pure and simple and the OFT agrees.

Remember that letter many of us keep getting from the bank (can't recall which one) where the bank says that the OFT have reported but this is limited only to credit cards? Look at paragraph 1.19 of the OFT's April 2006 statement. Here: http://www.oft.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/2EBC491E-303E-4FAA-A24D-32EF8396255E/0/oft842.pdf

The Act doesnt mention individual negotiations. It refers to the price being provided for by the contract. I will look into this in more detail when I have time. As a first impression it is interesting to note that the OFT in its report on credit card default charges does not give this issue any credence at all. It is mentioned once (see below). In my view it is clear that the OFT does not consider the default charge regime to be the provision of a service. Indeed in its setting out of key principles it immediately talks about breach of contract and continues on this theme throughout all of its legal analysis. Here http://www.oft.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/2EBC491E-303E-4FAA-A24D-32EF8396255E/0/oft842.pdf Not only this but later, at paragraph 4.21 it says... "Attempts to structure accounts in order to present events of default spuriously as additional services for which a charge may be made should be viewed as disguised penalties and equally open to challenge...." I think we have a powerful ally in the OFT when it comes to dealing with the "provision of a service" argument. And for good measure (although not on the exact topic of this thread) have a look at this thread too http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=6875

Absolutely and anyone going to court should print off evidence like this and serve them as documents to be relied on at the hearing. But with the Notice you are asking them to specifically admit the fact - not the same as introducing the evidence yourself at the hearing.

Hi timkay there really is no better advice than to ask you to read throught he FAQs - all the answers are there.

Part 32 is excluded from small claims (apart from Part 32.1) So we are in the same boat as with Part 18 requests. One would not norally expect to come across a Notice to Admit facts in a small claim but, as has been stated before, your claim is not a small claim until it is allocated to that track by the judge after the allocation questionnaires have been filed at the court. So there is scope to serve a notice to admit facts between the time that you receive the defence and the allocation of the case to the small claims track. Again, as with Part 18 requests, if the notice remained unanswered or the defendant objected to answering it because it is excluded from the small claims procedure, the judge may decide at any hearing that the defendant need not answer it because by then the claim will be a small claim. However, before allocation the rules are quite clear that a Notice to Admit Facts can be served so you would not be non-compliant with the rules if you did serve it - although to do so is certainly not within the "spirit" of the small claims procedure. One of its uses in my view would be to serve it in relation to evidential matters before allocation as a means to increase the costs to the defendant of dealing with the claim and therefore as a way of helping them decide to settle on commercial grounds - i.e. too expensive to defend. I can see that a Notice could however be quite effective. Lets assume you are suing one of the banks whose senior officers gave evidence to the Parliamentary Committee on bank charges. I recall that one of them made clear that penalty charges pay for the bank's whole debt collection operations and that therefore a charge on your account is used to fund the collection activity on other accounts - i.e. it is not a cost associated with just your account in respect of the cost of that particular breach. If he happened to be a senior officer of the bank that you are suing then one could serve a Notice to Admit facts attaching a transcript of this evidence to the Parliamentary Committee and ask the defendant to admit that the charges are not, in fact, a true assessment of the loss in respect of your account and your breach. That would put a big woody stick right in their spokes As with Part 18 requests I don't think there's a definitive answer that you should or shouldn't use them. I think its up to each individual but I don't see that you would be criticised by a judge for serving a Notice to Admit Facts before the case is allocated, but he/she might take the view that it is outside the spirit of the small claims procedure and therefore not require it to be answered. Hope this helps

No - its fine - don't worry. You've done it right

They have until 15th. As the court is closed on 13th May they are allowed to file on the next day that the court is open - i.e. 15th so you probably wont be able to enter a default judgment until 16th.

If there is no contractual redundancy scheme then the statutory regime applies. Again http://www.emplaw.co.uk is the place to look.