It is really hard to make the POC fit into the moneyclaim online limit. I used a different wording for the interest calculation which is quite common in county court claims and which will still permit you to claim the full statutory interest if the matter goes to a hearing. Instead of the usual interest "prayer" that comes up in the MCOL box I have put the following: "And the Claimant claims interest pursuant to section 69 County Courts Act for such periods and at such rates as the Court deems just" Clearly if a judge has to decide the interest it will be on the usual statutory basis. Just make sure that you have the calculation done to show the judge if you have to attend a hearing. Also if the matter settles you will be able to do likewise with the defendant in any negotiations. It does reduce the number of characters and lines quite a bit. Hope this helps:) And by the way I have issued two claims against Capital One/Bank - both settled in full after the proceedings were issued - so take a deep breath and go for it !

Yes. Put them all in the same claim. You are quite right - continuing to go through the same hoops is a waste of time. They have already made their position clear so you should do likewise - by claiming back the money they took from you

The Defendant

Put them all in the original claim. Your correspondence with the bank has asked for all charges to be refunded. Your claim is therefore for all charges up to the date of the claim. It doesn't matter if the figure has increased before you issue and after you have written your LBA or if the LBA quotes a different figure. Your Particulars of Claim on the Claim Form will clearly state that you are claiming all charges to the date of the claim and as such there will be no confusion. The court would prefer that you put them all in the same claim. Hope this helps

I think its Kay Standidge. She's just acknowledged my claim. Think she's getting busy. I will expect the stock defence and Part 18 Request ! She's a five year qualified lawyer working at RBS Group Legal Department in London.

He he nice one BW - great to see - can't wait to see what they do now they have acknowledged my 5k claim - hopefully the same

BF is correct except that there is a small anomoly here. This is because the claim is not at this stage on the Small Claims track. It will not be classified as a Small Claim until after the parties have filed their Allocation Questionnaires and the court has allocated it to that Track. Until then it is a "normal" claim and all the usual rules apply. However it is clear that the CPR envisage that Part 18 will not apply to a Small Claim, unless the court orders of its own initiative that further information should be given. If the court wanted to do this it would put the requirement in the order it makes alocating the claim to the Small Claims Track and requiring the usual Small Claims disclosure. In the circumstances I would reply to the bank that you are not prepared at this stage to answer the Request. You anticipate that the claim will be allocated to the Small CLaims Track and would not then expect to have to deal with a Part 18 request since these aere specifically excluded under Part 27 unless the court specifically orders you to do so of its own initiative. To my mind the practice that appears to be developing whereby the banks ask you for information about their unilaterally drafted contract seems quite pointless. The bank will have to produce the relevant contract and terms anyway in the course of usual Small Claims disclosure (i.e. send the other party copies of documents upon which you intend to rely 14 days before the hearing) since they are pleading in their defence that the charges are in accordance with the contract. They will have to prove this. At that point you will producing arguments to show that the charges are not a true reflection of the costs of dealing with your breach of your contract with the bank. The other tactic is to play them at their own game and serve your own Part 18 Request. Since the Bank is refuting that the charges are penalties ask them to produce all relevant documents, memoranda, notes or other records of the bank's assessment of the cost of dealing with your account, showing that the charges levied are a true reflection of the costs, whether they involve a profit element or contribute to the bank's general recovery costs in respect of its customers generally, or whether the costs only compensate the Bank for actual losses involved in dealing with the breach, and details of how the costs are levied, whether automatically or otherwise. That might give them something to think about! Of course they may refuse to answer the Request and then you (or they in respect of their own Request) could note on the Allocation Questionnaire that there is an outstanding Part 18 Request which you would like answered, enclosing a copy with your allocation questionnaire, and then leave it to the judge to decide if it should be answered. The only thing that worries me slightly is that getting invloved in Part 18 Requests might actually persuade the judge that there are legal issues and arguments that are sufficiently complex to merit listing the case on the Fast Track and then you are at risk of costs up to the Fast Track limit.

Thats wonderful - Well done you

Ok a post relevant to your thread that furthers your claim. I apologise if my post frustrated you in that I was not advising you directly. I will desist in future from posting about the CPR or other procedural issues ! People are getting far too worried about the detail here. A request for further information is unusual in a claim destined to be on the small claims track. You will not be criticised at all by the court for answering as follows: 1. No 2. The clause referred to by the defendant that permits the charges in paragraph 3 of its defence. 3. This is a request for evidence, not further information. The ask for the terms and conditions on the allocation questionnaire if you cant get them from the bank beforehand. That is all you need to do - don't waste your time or emotional energy worrying about it.

At the risk of having a debate I have to correct the mantra that appears on this forum that there is no disclosure on the small claims track. That is totally wrong. True, Standard disclosure as defined in the rules is excluded - but this only means that standard disclosure does not apply - and only then from the point of allocation to the small claims track. All that is excluded are the elements of normal litigation disclosure - service of lists of documents and the right to inspect them after lists are served. This is only to limit the costs incurred on the small claims track and the purpose and effect of this exclusion of standard disclosure is not to exclude disclosure entirely. Please read Part 27 regarding small claims: "27.4 Preparation for the hearing (1) After allocation the court will— (a) give standard directions and fix a date for the final hearing; (b) give special directions and fix a date for the final hearing; © give special directions and direct that the court will consider what further directions are to be given no later that 28 days after the date the special directions were given; (d) fix a date for a preliminary hearing under rule 27.6; or (e) give notice that it proposes to deal with the claim without a hearing under rule 27.10 and invite the parties to notify the court by a specified date if they agree the proposal. (2) The court will— (a) give the parties at least 21 days’ notice of the date fixed for the final hearing, unless the parties agree to accept less notice; and (b) inform them of the amount of time allowed for the final hearing. (3) In this rule (a) “standard directions” means— (i) a direction that each party shall, at least 14 days before the date fixed for the final hearing, file and serve on every other party copies of all documents (including any expert’s report) on which he intends to rely at the hearing; and (ii) any other standard directions set out in the relevant practice direction; and (b) “special directions” means directions given in addition to or instead of the standard directions." Please note Part 27.4 (1) (b) and Part 27.4 (3) (b). As well as directing that each party disclose documents upon which they intend to rely 14 days before the hearing the court can also give "special directions". These can, and often do include a direction that one party provides documents to the other that only one party has and which are relevant to the claim. The court will do so if you ask on the allocation questionnaire, or on a covering letter sent in with the allocation questionnaire explaining what documents you want and why they are relevant, and confirming (enclosing a copy letter) that you have requested them from the other party in writing. Dont forget that until the case is allocated to the small claims track by the court it is NOT a small claim and all the usual rules apply and your request for documents will in fact be made before allocation takes place and will be considered by the judge when making his/her decision about allocation. You are perfectly entitled to ask for an order that documents are disclosed and it would be odd indeed if there were no mechanism for you to do so - otherwise you would be bound by the rules to attend a hearing to argue your case without relevant paperwork - under the court's case management powers that possibility will always be avoided, and the court will want it to be avoided, if you ask the judge for the documents and they are clearly relevant. Sorry to bang on but it is clearly important that people do not believe, wrongly, that they cannot ask the court to order that documents be provided in good time to prepare properly for a hearing. The ability to ask for them would be doubly important if the bank had refused to provide any documents, i.e. statements. If there were no ability to ask that the court order their disclosure then the Claimant would effectively be unable to make a proper claim, and this is the logical meaning being perpetrated throughout this forum. The Claimant would make an estimated claim and ask for copies of those documents at the same time as submitting the allocation questionnaire so that the exact claim amount could be defined and the claim substantiated by the time of the hearing. That is quite normal and perfectly possible under the CPR, small claim or not. Hope this helps

Clearly Waynus you have never been self-employed. Ever had to wait, and wait, and wait while customers/clients sit on your bills and dont pay them for weeks/months, or even worse never pay them because they go bust? Your mortgage, council tax, life insurance, house insurance, utility bill payments (gas, electricity, telephone, mobile phone), car insurance, internet broadband, tv licence, buisiness rates, business waste collection, etc, etc, etc ALL still have to be paid and are usually ALL paid by direct debit. In short EVERYBODY still expects you to pay them on the due date. Then the money comes in late - how many charges? It can be obscene to see how much the banks will sting you for when they can and don't forget when clients pay late you get charged for the non-payment of DDMs on your business AND personal accounts since you pay yourself from your business account. Try setting up a business, work your arse off, pay your taxes, same as everybody else - then get paid late and get slaughtered by your bank. Then your high horse will seem a distant memory.

There is no formal requirement under the CPR for "standard diclosure" but courts have overriding case management powers to ensure that the parties litigate from an equal footing and this would obviously be the case where the bank has documents that you need in order to pursue your claim, hence the ability to ask for them on the allocation questionnaire.

Not so Seminole. In Small Claims parties are required to disclose documents upon which they intend to rely. The problem arises if the other party has documents you need and has not disclosed them - like a bank's T&Cs for example. Box J on the allocation questionnaire ("any other information") is where one can ask the court to order that a party discloses documents that only it has and that it has not yet provided. The court will then make an order for disclosure using its case management powers and include this requirment in the Allocation to track Order that it makes so long as it accepts that the documents are relevant to the claim and it would not be disproportionate to order that they be disclosed. The usual order is for disclosure 14 days before the hearing.

To take 10k off of you they must have really caused you some aggravation. Great news and puts a smile on my face to know you both finally got what you deserve

Part 2 of the Civil Procedure Rules will give you your answer. Bank holidays are only excluded from part of any time limit if the original time limit is 5 days or less and one of those days is a bank holiday - the bank holiday is excluded in this circumstance. Also if the last day for complying with a time period is a day when the court is closed the period will be deemed to have been complied with if the relevant action to comply with the time limit is done on the next day that the court is open - so if the last day of the 14 days is a bank holiday or a weekend day (the court is always closed on these days) then filing the defence on the next day that the court is open would be sufficient. Take a look at http://www.greenbook.co.uk for all the Civil Procedure Rules. Hope this helps

Yes and they seem to be defending claims too, although yet to see if they actually take that defence before a judge. They certainly delay as long as possible. My DPA request was complied with late - requested 18.2 and got the statements 12.4 - a huge bundle (4 accounts worth) in one thin brown envelope that had burst - whole lot were left outside my front door in a clear post office bag taped up at the top! Nice customer confidentiality !! Also there were loads of duplicates in the bundle.

Thats interesting Gladys Pym and thanks for the information. My claim against them issued today for £5000 so I'll be interested to see if I get the same response. I'm not sure I could answer request 2 - I don't have a copy of the contractual terms - do you? I would answer that the precise wording of the term is unknown pending disclosure of documents (if the case goes any further the bank will have to let you have a copy of the terms and conditions if you dont have them) but comment that presumably the defendant is aware of the terms of its own contract, particularly since it has pleaded in its defence that the charges were applied in accordance with that contract.

Hi BF Have a look at this case. It is relevant to the issue. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200102/ldjudgmt/jd020425/cave-1.htm A Claimant would need to show that the banks knew the charges were penalties and didn't tell us. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that this might have been the case but not much concrete before the OFT and parliamentary commission interest began. If the banks were to plead that they genuinely believed the charges to be lawful at that time then the evidential burden would be quite difficult to discharge, don't you think?

If you read the FAQs you will know the answer to your question. Honestly it really is a good idea to read them. You need to understand the issues and the reason why you will be claiming back your charges before you take them on.

Glad you got the DPA info. Not intending to hi-jack your thread at all but Nat West are WAY past the 40 days on my statements and still nothing - even though they have written to me twice saying they are chasing my request!

Two claims - one against Capital One credit card. Second against Capital Bank - car hp. Both claims settled in full with costs and interest and both settlements were the first offer received from the defendants. Capital One acknowledged the claim before making the offer. Capital Bank made the offer as soon as the proceedings were issued. Total sums involved almost £2000 so they werent "nothing" claims.

Also in order for estoppel to succeed you need to show that you have acted to your detriment in reliance on a promise and that you have changed your position as a result. That just isnt so where money arrives in your account by mistake.

I think its a lot simpler than the above posts suggest. How do any of those T&Cs indicate a service? That is certainly not the clear meaning of them as far as I can see. They indicate a punitive measure. They indicate that unliquidated damages will be charged. So.....they have to be reasonable, based on the true cost, etc. etc. Also, in my opinion, they are set out in the T&Cs as a means to warn you and to compel performance. Almost all T&Cs I have seen refer to "default" or "additional" charges, not to giving you a service and in a consumer contract terms must be clear. I.e. the T&Cs introduce a penalty - seems pretty clear to me.

Nice idea but bound to fail I'm afraid. The estoppel cases you quote are mainly deployed in claims for an interest in property (usually land) in family and probate cases. The legal position in realtion to mistakes is far simpler. If the bank make a mistake and you spend the money they are entitled to it back.. Its no different to you finding that someone else's money has been transferred into your account by mistake or that your employers have paid you too much this month. Where there is a simple mistake then the money must be repaid. The equitable relief you refer to depends on a relationship between the parties involved where one has lead another to believe that they will obtain an interest in propertty (e.g. a carer being told by an elderly person that they will get the house in thier Will; or a non-owning partner being told that if they stay home and look after the kids they will get an interest in the house; etc.) No such relationship exists where your bank makes a simple typo type mistake and puts the wrong figure on a credit to your account.

Yep they are SLOOOWW 37 days on my DPA request and counting.