Dear all I'm hoping for some advice as am extremely broke and have been served section 21 by landlord to quit property end may - this is fine as I have paid all rent but am finding it difficult now so need to move somewhere cheaper. However in all these discussions it has transpired by landlord failed to protect the £1625 I paid April 2011 as deposit. Today he rings and admits he hadn't done it but that he had protected it today. My query is can I still get a court to award me the penalty of 3x deposit due to his failure over the last year? And if he's how do I go about this as I don't need to get court to make him protect it(thou until get proof from TDS will be withholding rent) but I am very poor having given up my job last year to nurse my terminally ill mother. The landlord has not treated me well despite me keeping property immaculately (his words) and paying all rent on time - if this penalty is due to me I really could do with it despite that possibly being money grabbing!!! Any advice gratefully received

Dear all I'm hoping for some advice as am extremely broke and have been served section 21 by landlord to quit property end may - this is fine as I have paid all rent but am finding it difficult now so need to move somewhere cheaper. However in all these discussions it has transpired by landlord failed to protect the £1625 I paid April 2011 as deposit. Today he rings and admits he hadn't done it but that he had protected it today. My query is can I still get a court to award me the penalty of 3x deposit due to his failure over the last year? And if he's how do I go about this as I don't need to get court to make him protect it(thou until get proof from TDS will be withholding rent) but I am very poor having given up my job last year to nurse my terminally ill mother. The landlord has not treated me well despite me keeping property immaculately (his words) and paying all rent on time - if this penalty is due to me I really could do with it despite that possibly being money grabbing!!! Any advice gratefully received

Dear all I hope someone here can help me! I have had lots of very good advice re bank charges and am now looking for some help re benefits. I was made redundant on 15th jan 2010 and since 18th jan have been in receipt of jsa contrib based at approx £130 per fortnight. Since 25th jan I have been receiving housing benefit at £175 per week and council tax benefit at approx £22 per week. I have now been offered a job on a six month contract starting weds 28th July - I will sign off as of then. My question is will all my benefits stop immediately? I will not be paid for a month and have no money to pay rent bills and debts. I spoke to a helpful woman at the council today who said I was paid 2 wkd in arrears so when this weekends payment was done they would owe me the 2 wks arrears (but she also said the payment going through at mo covered me to 25th July so am confused as does the arrears mean am entitled to 2 wks after sign off?). She also told me to apply for a four week overrun which I will. But how does jsa work? Can I get any more payments once signed off? Sorry this is so rambling! Any help very gratefully received!

I currently work for a huge multinational corporation and am based in one of their london offices in a level 2 management position and have been employed since Jan 2nd 2009. Last week myself and the other managers at my level in my department were called in and told we were in a redundancy pool and that we would all have two weeks consultation follwed by interviews where we would have to re-apply for our positions and that the five would reduce to four. My queries are - 1) The consultation period is supposed to be where me and my colleagues are able to suggest alternative re-structures etc. However the only viable alternative any of us have come up with is a reduction in level 3 managers (our bosses) as in the new structure four level 2's will report into 3 level 3's which is top heavy. The level 3 brigade are however the people who will be conducting our interviews and are who will make the final decision on who gets the remaining position. therefore me and my peers all feel we are not able to make this suggestion as it will black mark us in the process. Is this behaviour any grounds for legal appeal? 2) Today it has been announced that a level 2 manager is moving from the marketing department into my area in a newly created role. None of us have been invited to apply for this role and we are all suspicious that this role has just been created to fit this man as he would otherwise be up for redundancy in his own department. My belief was that if new positions are created they have to be advertised and we have to be able to apply for them? Again is this the case? And do I have any grounds for legal action if I am unlucky enough to be the position which is made redundant? 3) They are steadfastly refusing to tell me how many employees are in danger of redundancy and so I have no way of assessing if they are acting properly with thier legal obligations re consultation periods - again I can't create about this as it will influence the interview process negatively. Is there anything I can do? 4) They have written to us all this afternoon saying if we want it sorted by christmas we have to waive our consultation rights which I am unhappy doing. My feeling is I should wait to see if its me who has to go and if I do then I should persue any legal action? However I am not an expert in this field and I don't really know if I have any grounds for action? Any advice gratefully received.......

Bump

Hi I moved into a property on 15th dec 2008 - when I moved in it became apparent that a) the bathroom sink was not draining properly and b) the kitchen cupboard door which was hiding the boiler was not securely fixed to the wall. The landlady and her mother came to inspect the property on 28th feb and agreed both issues needed dealing with - her mother did a bodge job of mending the cupboard but assured me they would get onto the estate agents who I am renting through and get a man in to repair it properly. Three weeks later I got a message from estate agents asking if the maintenance man could go round that afternoon. Unfortunately I was abroad and did not get the message until the end of the day when I was back in the UK. I did nothing assuming the agents would be back in touch with an alternative date. They didn't. Last night I opened the cupboard (which is a v heavy door) and the whole thing came away from the wall - it broke 5 glasses stored on a shelf underneath it and hit me on the side of the head and broke my vision glasses (luckily it didn't cause the glass to shatter in my eyes!) and has damaged and bruised my right hand. I ring the estate agents this morning who are initially v apologetic and say they will get on to the landlady and sort it out - half an hour later they come back to me saying the landlady is saying it is not her liability as she had informed the agents to make the repair. The agents are now saying it is not their liability as I failed to repsond to the ONE message they had left me about a man having access to the property. I am now left with costs of over £200 to replace both the drinking and vision galsses and I am also worried that as the wooden floor has been damaged I will be hit by a penalty on my deposit. Does anyone have any advice on where I stand with this legally? I am extremely broke and really can't afford to replace my glasses and am really worried my deposit will be withheld due to the floor damage. Miavega

Hi wonder if someone can help me as I am very confused about what to do - I started my claim against barclaycard and went through all the hoops resulting in them crediting to my account the difference between the charges they imposed and the £12 OFT limit. They wrote saying they had done this and that unless I responded within 8 weeks they would close the case. My query is do I continue persuing this with the big test case going on? It looks like others are but the other corporations I am chasing eg Natwest have written to me saying all is on hold til the case is heard but I've heard nothing from Barc. Advice would be hugely gratefully recieved.....

HI thanks for reply - I have searched under jonni2bad for the rejection letter but can't find anything - would it have been in a barclays thread? Sorry to hassle you but want to make sure I don't jeopardise my claim by doing it wrong! miavega

HI Can I ask you for some advice re this please - you state you have done this claim as the FIRST part of the claim as they have only provided you with data from 2004 onwards. I received my data this am and again only from 2004 on - am I best to wait for the rest of the data (which could take up to six weeks) or to do two claims? If yes to two claims what is the correct wording for the prelim to ensure I can still claim for 2004 backwards once I receive data? Many thanks miavega

No-one wants to talk to me but my letter has worked!!! They have cpitualted on the disputed four years from 1996-2000 and paid me the £105 back (letter showed average charges as they were unable to tell me exactly what I had been charged in that period until yesterday when they suddenly "found" the figures) which has increased to 1500 with 27.9% compounded contractual interest plus the 8% court interest. thanks MBNA but most of all thanks CAG - donation on its way when I get the cheque......

HI all have successfully got 6 years of charges back from MBNA as well as 27.9% interest plus 8% interest (their mistake I think) but have now been chasing for older charges. Have copied my last letter below and as the deadline is today I have rung them and am awaiting repsonse this afternoon. Any comments or advice VERY gratefully received...... Many thanks for your letter dated 5th February 2007. Apologies accepted for the mistakes in previous correspondence from yourselves. I was grateful to receive the full breakdown as I was unclear where the additional refund you offered recently had come from. It is now clear this was the s69 8% interest courts are currently paying on top of the exact claim amounts plus contractual compound interest. I believe the offer made to MBNA in my letter dated 5th January 2007 was both fair and reasonable. As you have declined this offer I have no choice but to pursue through the courts the total claim of £2428.79 for the first four years of my banking history with your organisation. This amount has now grown due to the additional days of interest so the new total is now £2506.25 based on a medium range interest rate of 15.4%. Schedule attached. The offer made by myself to you re 50% has now been withdrawn and I will be submitting my claim via Moneyclaim online on 15th March. As I am sure you have all my correspondence on file there is little merit in me reiterating where this figure has been derived from. The following are the legal arguments that I believe back my contention that this money should be refunded to me along with an excerpt from the Statute of Limitations. Fraud, concealment and mistake 32 Postponement of limitation period in case of fraud, concealment or mistake (1) Subject to subsections (3) and (4A) below, where in the case of any action for which a period of limitation is prescribed by this Act, either-- (a) the action is based upon the fraud of the defendant; or (b) any fact relevant to the plaintiff's right of action has been deliberately concealed from him by the defendant; or © the action is for relief from the consequences of a mistake; 1) As the OFT has stated that the principles underlying its report on credit card default charges are analogous to standard default charges in bank current accounts, I contend that it is likely that MBNA have concealed the punitive nature of current account default charges from me and other customers. I therefore further contend that Section 32(1)(b) of the Limitation Act (1980) applies and that my claim is therefore not time barred. Cases such as Cave vs Robinson Jarvis & Rolf highlight that in such a case the period of limitation does not run until the plaintiff discovers the concealment. I also contend it was not ignorance of the law which prevented me taking action sooner but rather that the validity of the original contract clauses under law were initially and then continually misrepresented that your charges equated to your actual costs. I trusted your representation of your rights under law and this amounts to concealment. I therefore contend my claim is not time barred by virtue of section 32(1)(b) due to concealment. In my court submission I will of course point out that in order to determine whether this view is correct or not it may be necessary for the Court to consider MBNA’s management accounting information and decision making processes governing the setting of charges. I will be seeking disclosure of this information. 2) The claimant (myself) as a lay person with no legal training or expertise could not be expected to have any legal knowledge to question the validity and the lawfulness of these charges which were applied to my account over the years shown as per the schedule of charges. MBNA acting as my fiduciary must at some point have made a business decision to apply a charge to a customer account where a breach of contract took place, which was disproportionate to MBNA’s actual losses for that breach. In making this decision it would reasonably be expected that a company operating in such a position of high trust and fiduciary responsibility would have taken legal counsel when making such a decision. If legal counsel was sought then the decision was made in the full knowledge that said charges were unlawful and this was concealed from your customers and again section 32(1)(b) of the Limitation Act 1980 should apply. 3) If legal counsel was not sought on this issue then I believe MBNA did not act with the reasonable diligence that would be expected of an experienced fiduciary, and that your failure to seek legal counsel should have been declared when you did eventually seek legal counsel, and that by not making such a declaration MBNA have continued to show deliberate concealment and therefore section 32(1)(b) of the Limitation Act 1980 should apply. 4) If legal action was not sought and MBNA were genuinely unaware that said charges were unlawful then I contend that section 32(1)© of said Act should apply. 5) In April 2006 the Office of Fair Trading published “Calculating Fair Default Charges in Credit Card Contracts. Paragraph 1.3 states “The statement sets out our view of the law which is in essence that default charge provisions are open to challenge on grounds of unfairness if they have the object of raising more in revenue than is reasonably expected to be necessary to recover certain limited administrative costs incurred by the credit card issuer.” Therefore I believe the issue of unjust enrichment is important here. The essence of this principle is that it is unjust for a person to retain a benefit which he has received at the expense of another, without any legal ground to justify its retention, which that other person did not intend him to receive. Furthermore (Zwiegert &Kotz p.32) – if the payer paid in the mistaken belief that he was under a duty to pay, it is prima facie unjust that the payee should be allowed to retain what he received. As stated above this claim will be submitted on 15th March. The delay in submission is simply to allow yourselves to respond to this letter so the courts can see I have given you every chance to resolve this without resorting to legal action. Obviously once this claim has been allocated to a court I will be furnishing both yourself and the court with my full submissions and legal arguments. Yours sincerely :cool: :cool:

No probs - good luck ) Just starting on my next claim against them for the charges on my credit card now as they seem to be paying out at the moment......

Hi I have now settled my bank account charges with Natwest and am now ready to go ahead with my credit card with them. On the contact stickies I see no difference in contact details so should I just deal with Stuart Higley as I did for my bank account charges? Any advice very gratefully received.....

Stuart Higley Ground Floor National Westminster House 225 Shenley Road Borehamwood WD6 1TE Good luck - I got all my data last year and they kept fobbing me off but with Xmas I had to just leave it. Got a very suprising letter 10 days ago offering me full amount without me even chasing past the prelim letter.

MBNA seem to be the best at paying out at the moment - in your shoes I would ring customer advocate office on 01224 672628 and speak to Paul Minney, Colin Pugh or Yvonne and tell them you are a member of CAG and have seen that everyone else has had contractual interest paid so you want it too - work out which is the higest rate you have ever had and do a new schedule of charges and work out new total and then just tell them unless they offer full settlement of that amount you will go via MCOL and pursue court settlement. they offered me 8% and as soon as I said no they recalulated at 27.9% - made a difference of over 1k in money back so well worth doing.

Hold out and ring someone from the customer advocate office - I spoke to Colin Pugh and explained it would not be in his interest or mine to not pay me all charges and interest and within three days had whole amount and interest calculated at 27.9% for entire amount, Tel no 01224 672628. Paul Minney, Yvonne or Colin would be your best bet.

Sent Higley the letter below last week and having still heard nothing from him managed to phone him (oh and he is not a nice person on the phone at all) and he tells me the bank has stopped making ANY payments at the moment as basically the bigwigs have decided they need a strategy and until he gets their strategy his department cannot make any new agreements with any customers. his phone no is 0208 236 8223 Letter I sent (thanks to Littlesally who I unashamedly copied it off!!!!) - so I guess my only option now is to file the MCOL claim???? Thank you for your letter dated 23rd October 2006. You clearly do not believe that I will issue a claim against you for the unfair bank charges against my accounts. I am writing to inform you that this will be the next stage unless I hear from you, in the next 7 days, that the £935.08 I am claiming from you will be paid back to me in full. I have attached a copy of my already prepared HMCS Moneyclaim online court submission – I will be claiming unless this matter is settled in full by 7th December 2006. However, please accept this correspondence in accordance with my duty under the Civil Procedure Rules to continue to pursue a settlement without the need to invoke the time of the courts. Take note that I will draw the Court’s attention to the fact that you have not made any attempts at settlement in accordance with the overriding objectives of CPR. Furthermore I will submit this letter to the Court as further evidence of your intransigence with my case despite my attempts at settlement and the settling by your company of all other similar claims to date. Alternatively, in accordance with the overriding objectives of the Civil Procedure Rules I would like to give you the opportunity to settle this issue without the need to take the time of the Courts. My claim is for £935.08. If you could ensure that this sum is paid into my bank account within seven days I will inform the court that this matter is settled. If you wish to proceed with this, I will be pleased to meet you in court and hear your justification of the penalty charges. And, I am sure, so will all Natwest customers. If you do not intend to defend the charges in court, but hoping that I will "just go away", I need to point out to you that this will not happen. But you will incur more costs against you by the court. Please do not waste their time and mine with something you do not intend to defend.

Hi you are entitled to ask for your entire history with them - them giving it to you is an enetirely different matter though.

I have just agreed to a PARTIAL settlement with MBNA for the last six years of charges plus interest at 27.9% compounded (and will be donating as soon as get the cheque!!!). However I now wish to claim for the four years previous to this and have drafted the following letter - any hints or tips would be gratefully received as would any pointers to any threads with success stories for older charges..... Dear Colin Further to our telephone conversations and to the written correspondence I have received from your colleagues at MBNA I am pleased to confirm that I have accepted your two payments to my credit card (£510, and £560) and your cheque for £820 (as yet not received) as PARTIAL settlement of my claim against yourselves. I will accept it as full settlement for the six years dated from 2000 to 2006. Whilst I appreciate the conversations we have had with regards to claims going back further than 6 years I do not agree with your arguments and therefore will pursue a further claim against MBNA for the four years previous to the six we have already settled. Despite my Subject Access Request plus payment of £10 being received by yourselves, you have chosen to return the payment to me and give me transactional data for only six years. On the telephone you stated that you no longer had access to records on my account for the four years of 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999. As you are unable to provide me with this data my claim will be based on the provable averages charged to me in the six year period that you have supplied data for. As we have already agreed the average charge for the six year period was £177.50 per year and therefore my claim for the four year period will total £710.00. Again, as already discussed I have no wish to be unreasonable and so will calculate interest for this four year period at the lower rate of 15.4% instead of the 27.9% which was applied to the six year period. This brings the total claim amount to £2428.79. As the OFT has stated that the principles underlying its report on credit card default charges are analogous to standard default charges in bank current accounts, I contend that it is likely that MBNA have concealed the punitive nature of current account default charges from me and other customers. I therefore further contend that Section 32(1)(b) of the Limitation Act (1980) applies and that my claim is therefore not time barred. S.32 (1) (b) of the Act says:- 32.-- (1) .... where in the case of any action for which a period of limitation is prescribed by this Act, either- (a) the action is based upon the fraud of the defendant; or (b) any fact relevant to the plaintiff's right of action has been deliberately concealed from him by the defendant; or © the action is for relief from the consequences of a mistake; the period of limitation shall not begin to run until the plaintiff has discovered the fraud, concealment or mistake (as the case may be) or could with reasonable diligence have discovered it.... The OFT by their investigation has announced that at least all charges more than £12.00 are unfair in that they are most unlikely to represent the true costs of a breach of the banking contract. Also the OFT has made it clear that this is their tolerable maximum before automatic intervention and that charges will normally be much less than this figure. The OFT has based their conclusion upon evidence provided by the banks and by their own research. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that the banks must have known this all along. The banks have always refused to reveal their costs - even to a Treasury Select Committee and certainly to their customers. Most customers have received letters in which the banks have claimed that their charges have been fair and reasonable. It seems quite reasonable to infer that the banks must have concealed the information and therefore the cause of action and that this has been done deliberately. Of course, the test is simple. If the bank agrees to go to court with you, then simply ask them at the hearing if they will say what their costs are. The Bank will probably refuse to do so. This refusal alone would probably establish the deliberate concealment. If this is the case then we can say that the 6 year limitation period starts on the day of the OFT statement. Colin – I have looked into the statute of limitations with some care and I feel duty bound to tell you one reason I have decided to go ahead with claiming for the four year disputed period is that I have proof that MBNA have paid out to other customers for as much as eleven years. I require repayment in full of this money in the sum of £2428.79. If you do not comply fully within 14 days then I shall begin a further claim against you for the full amount plus my costs and without further notice. Yours sincerely miavega:)

Following letter from Stephen Bailey above I have now received a letter from Stuart Johnson stating their standard response to the fact they disagree with the OFT's ruling etc but as a goodwill gesture they have credited my account with £510.00 and have returned my SAR payment of £10. They also inckluded details of my charges over the last six years. So they have not fulfilled my SAR as have had the account since 1996. My inclination is to take the charges detailed (£1140 in total) for six years and average them ie £190 per year and times that by 10 = £1900. I feel my best way forward is to ring Paul Minney today and state the above and state I want compounded contractual interest added on. Could someone advise please? ie should I ring Minney or this Johnson guy whose name I have not seen before. Or should I write to this Johnson guy stating above and complaining they have not fullfilled my SAR. I know there are some good posts detailing arguments for why I should ask for charges back previous to 6 years but this am can't find them - can anyone point me in the right direction please?

I wrote to Paul Miney - Customer Advocate Offfice MBNA Europe Limited Stansfield House Chester Business Park Wrexham Road Chester CH4 9QQ recieved reply very promptly telling me they were looking into my "complaint" and to expect a ful response by Nov 17th. Original SAR sent Oct 17th. These guys seem to be one of the best to deal with as the threads show - good luck!!!

Fab thank you - and thats made it up to grand total of £1025........

OKay now received a standard letter back from Higley saying still bog off and please serve legal documents on registered address etc etc. Do I start MCOL immediately or do I wait til end of 14 days from their receipt of my LBA? Also in the amount of money I was claiming I used Vampiress spreadsheet with the 8% interest - so I have claimed for the charges plus the 8% interest - I am getting really confused on the interest issue and am unclear as to whether there is another sum of interest I should be claiming too - could anyone who understands this please advise me? I have read a million threads discussing this and am now more confused than when I started..... Miavega:confused:

Started my process against MBNA on 17th October sending them SAR plus £10.00 cheque plus id. Received standard reply on Oct 27th reading Dear Miavega Thank you for your letter dated October 17, 2006, which we received on October 20,2006. We are currently investigating your complaint and will send you a full response by November 16, 2006. In the meantime, should you have any queries please call the Customer Advocate Office on 01244 672628 Mon - Fri 8am - 5pm. Yours sincerely Stephen Bailey I await their response with eager anticipation and will update as and when anything happens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Miavega

I've used Paul Minney - Customer Advocate Office MBNA Europe Limited Stansfield House Chester Business Park Wrexham Road Chester CH4 9QQ Good luck