Santander is to close 140 branches, putting 1,270 jobs at risk, the Spanish-owned bank said.The lender said the closures are in response to how customers are choosing to carry out their banking. Santander has consulted unions on the proposed changes and will seek to find alternative roles for the 1,270 staff members affected, wherever possible. The bank expects to be able to redeploy around a third of that number. Susan Allen, Santander’s head of retail and business banking, said: “The way our customers are choosing to bank with us has changed dramatically in recent years, with more and more customers using online and mobile channels. “As a result, we have had to take some very difficult decisions over our less-visited branches, and those where we have other branches in close proximity. More ...... https://uk.yahoo.com/finance/news/santander-branch-closures-spanish-owned-101010907.html

Hi, Looking for some advice if possible My partner and i recently went through the process of trying to get a mortgage. After providing all our financial details to the Mortgage advisor his view was we would only qualify for a Mortgage with a high risk lender such as Kensington which I will not entertain. Reasons are: - My partner is in a debt management plan with Step Change, any reputable lender will be put off by this. - All but one of the debts in the plan are over 6 years old so do not show on her credit file - The only debt that is less than 6 years happens to be the largest a £7.8k balance from an old Nat West loan now owned by Wescot - this debt is due to go over 6 years in January and then fall off my partners credit file. The advisor suggested a couple of options. i) Pay the £7.8k balance off and stop paying Stepchange then reapply with 3 months clear bank statements not showing any payments to Stepchange. ii) pay nothing and wait until January, then reapply for a mortgage and deal with debt after the mortgage is in place. Obviously paying the debt off impacts our deposit. My partner has written to Wescot for a reduced settlement and they rejected this. She's resigned to paying the full amount, however i wanted to check on here if anyone has any advice on how we could reduce or prolong the process? There is no PPI on the original loan or anything. Just looking for some help! thanks

I recently purchased a tenanted property with a leasehold of 125 years. As there are 3 other flats and a commercial premises as part of the building there is a managing agent in charge. It is a first floor premises and the agent recently requested access to the property for a bi annual inspection. The tenant was unhappy about this (as there had been a historical bad relationship between tenant and agent - which I inherited) so instead photographs were supplied. The agent is now insisting that going forward they are allowed access to the premises for such inspections. My tenant is still refusing access, I am happy to support this (for the sake of positive relations) but wonder where we stand legally on the matter? Do I have to allow access considering I own the property?

Hello I sold a car and posted the logbook with the new owner’s details to the DVLA by first class post. (next time I will record delivery – lesson learnt). I received a failure to insure wrote back to them with the details of the new owner and explained that I had written to him to ask him to provide the details of his insurance . I had already informed DVLA that the insurance company he said he was insured with (but not the policy numberI have no proof other than his word that it was insured). The next thing I had through was a court judgement for failure to insure. I contacted the court to advise that I had never received a summons. I completed the appeals procedure and now have a court hearing for a weeks’ time, it says it is a hearing to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. I did phone the court to ask if this is the time that I need to bring my evidence but the helpline advised they was not sure! the new owner contacted DVLA to advise that he was indeed the new owner and confirm the date of purchase (3 months before the offence) The DVLA have written to me to confirm that he has contacted them to advise he was the owner at the time of the offence but they have written to advise me that as DVLA have me listed as the registered owner at the time of the offence they are still pursuing me. I have read on a few forums and people with similar problems and it seems to be; Informing DVLA by post is the only requirement for me to have complied with the notification. X I have a witness to the posting of the logbook. Has anyone been through a similar process? I am currently looking at a couple of court hearings that the DVLA have been judged against which I think might have useful judgements to refer to. if no acknowledgement contact DVLA has no authority at law in fact the case of Duncan Peek at Horsham County Court in April 2010 it was stated that DVLA had NO STATUTORY POWER for anyone to ring them. Likewise in the case James COLLINS in October 2009 ( Liquid Knights long post) at Clerkenham District Court one had not to prove to DVLA that letter re SORN sent. Up to DVLA to prove otherwise. Any comments or pointers gratefully received, especially for the court hearing. Many thanks for taking the time to read this post.

Hi, I'm usually pretty confident with dealing with debt collectors and things like this but this one has got me scratching my head a little and so I'm just looking for a little bit of advice from people that know far more about these things than I do. I signed up with our local gym in June of last year. It's a council owned gym but they outsource their membership management to a company called Debit Finance Collections (DFC). Our membership is actually a Consumer Credit Agreement provided by DFC which runs for 12 months and ends in June. Everything was going well until I went to the gym in January and they declined my membership card saying that my account had been suspended. Embarrassed and confused I went home to telephone DFC and I was informed that I had cancelled my direct debit. I told them I hadn't and offered to pay them over the phone there and then. They declined this and told me to just set up a new DD which I did. I again got knocked back at the gym as once again my account had supposedly been suspended. I contacted DFC who once again said that I had cancelled my DD. After a few days of me arguing that I hadn't and them arguing that I had, I received a letter from them threatening me with solicitors if I didn't pay what I owed. I have written to them and emailed them numerous times practically begging them to take the money out of my bank. Despite communicating with them for several weeks, DFC wrote to me saying how disappointed they are that I am choosing to ignore their letters and saying that they have no choice now but to enforce the agreement in full. They are demanding over £300 which covers the period of January upto June. Due to all this happening, and not wanting to miss out on keeping up my weight loss, I joined Pure Gym in February to keep me going until this was resolved. Due to their behaviour I did a little bit of research into DFC and discovered that they no longer possess a Consumer Credit Licence. It was cancelled in October. I contacted them about this and they said that they are no longer pursuing the original agreement as a consumer credit agreement and are simply pursuing it as an outstanding debt. This has gotten me confused. Are they allowed do that? Surely if I sign a CCA for 12 months then it has to be treated as such for the entire period? Secondly, the gym that I was signed up with has never held a consumer credit licence, so should they be acting as a broker? I read that them filling in the consumer credit application form for me and sending it off to DFC constitutes being a broker for which they need to be licensed. I'll be honest, at this point, I'm just looking for a way out of this now. I'm happy with Pure Gym and I've had nothing but stress for the last 3 months with DFC. Again, I apologise for the length of this post but I just wanted to give you as much information as possible. If anybody can offer a bit of advice regarding this then I'd be very grateful. Thanks, Paul

Hello Many thanks for reading this- kindly appreciated. I jointly own a property with my ex-husband. We had a NRAM together mortgage with the unsecured loan, I went into IVA once we split up and he is now solely responsible for the remainder of the unsecured debt. As he ignored paying towards this debt (any debts really!) NRAM took him to Court and the following restriction has been entered in the proprietorship register in the Land Registry document: "No disposition of the registered estate is to be registered without a certificate signed by the applicant for registration or his conveyancer that written notice of the disposition was given to NRAM being the person with the benefit of interim charging order on the beneficial interest of Mr... (my ex-husband) made by the [name of court] on [date] [Court reference…]." I put the property on the market after being assured by my conveyancer that the restriction can be easily removed. Close to the exchange of contracts my solicitor suggested that she can't give undertaking to my buyer that the restriction will be removed as NRAM are not willing to remove the charge - please see the correspondence received from NRAM attached. The deal fell through partly because of this and partly because my ex stopped corresponding and signing paperwork. He is not corresponding with NRAM either. I will have to go back to Court to ask the Court to sign property sale documents on my ex's behalf I gather... My question is whether I can sell the property? How can this restriction be removed? Is there any recommendations for the conveyancing solicitors who are experts in this matter and are prepared to give the undertaking so I can sell and move on with my life? Or is there any other solution to this please? I would so much appreciate some help with this please. Thank you. NRAM letter.pdf

Hello everyone .. I need your advice on a peculiar situation I'm in now. Two weeks ago I received a notice of removal from a bailiff for a debt of £1030 owed to the City and County of Swansea. I went to the bailiff's office they said it's about 3 parking fines from last year. I don't own a car, a driving license and I don't even know how to drive. I went to the council they said there is a car registered in my name and my address. I went to DVLA and filed a complaint that I am not the owner of the car. DVLA said it will take three weeks to process. My guess is someone with the same name but different address is the owner of the car. Both the council and DVLA have a previous address for me which I know nothing about. I arrived in the UK one year ago to study and I have only one address which is a room in a house shared by other students. I filled a TE7:TE9 form and I stated that I am not the owner of the vehicle and I live only in one address. I attached my tenancy agreement, my visa with the entry date on it, my police registration certificate with my address that I registered as soon as I arrived. I also attached a letter from my landlord that this is my only address and that I don't own a car. The bailiff action is now on hold. I received a copy of the council's letter to TEC, the council rejected my application and they request the court to change the address on the warrant to my address claiming that I am the same person and I changed addresses. They ignored all the evidence that I submitted and argued that I didn't submit any evidence from DVLA. When I went to DVLA the first time they said the registration number doesn't exist in their database, and I stated this in the TE7:TE9 form. But when I went again I discovered that they have mistaken the number zero for a letter O and there is actually a car registered with my name. But this was too late to include in the TE7:TE9 form. The council states in the letter that "although it is apparent that I might have not received correspondence from them it's my responsibility to make sure I receive mail after a change of address". I am worried that TEC will also reject my application and approves the council's decision, should I seek a legal representation? Any advice will be appreciated ... Thank you

Hi, I have gotten copies of my credit files and I agree with most of what is on there. However, there is a debt which is currently owned by Lowell for a telecoms bill. The bill was for 02. I ordered a phone several years back and there was a problem with the delivery, it ended up going back to 02 and I cancelled the order as I thought the service was rubbish. I got a phone from tmobile instead. So I have just found a Lowell debt for nearly £1200 on my credit files. Can I complain to Equifax etc? As I never had the phone it would not have been used and there is no way I would have run up a phone bill that high anyway. I have tried emailing Lowell but they are fobbing me off with "the creditor has given them permission to collect the payment from me". Thanks in advance.

Hi all, I used to have a credit card and paid a large amount in PPI for several years. I'd now like to claim back that PPI as, not only was it forced upon me, but it was useless in my circumstances anyway (self-employed, claim was denied). Unfortunately, that credit card had a large outstanding balance when my income plummeted and was ultimately passed through several debt collection agencies. The debt is now owned by a notorious DCA (statements mention a date of "assignment"). the debt is statute barred, I haven't acknowledged the debt or serviced it in any way .. . although I haven't written to the DCA, so I still receive endless letters about it. The problem is, I've read about a lot of PPI claims being successful, only for the refund to be sent to the DCA. I'd rather not make a claim at all, than do anything which will profit this particular lying, manipulative, deceitful, apology for humanity. So, with all that in mind, I thought it would be worth getting in touch with the DCA and trying to settle the debt for a tiny amount. The idea being that with the debt satisfied, the DCA would have no claim to any PPI refund. This worries me though, as I've read about the clock being reset on a statute barred debt, by either an acknowledgement of the debt or a payment of the debt. So ... umm ... that's about where I'm at. Does the DCA have the right to a PPI refund with a SB'd debt? Is it worth trying to settle the debt? Would this make a difference for PPI claim purposes? Is it risky to contact a DCA offering settlement? Would this reset the time limit? It would be great to hear of anyone else who's been through this situation, particularly with barclaycard, and obviously any advice anyone has generally would be gratefully received. Thanks! Bob.

hi hope someone can help asap I have been visited by Equita baiiff today for unpaid council tax. I have told him that in two weeks I will try and a make a payment but cant promise the figure we agreed due to low income. I have to give him his due he was very nice about the situation. the problem has arisen that he has told me that they can take the car parked out front. this is where the situation gets tricky so bear with me... the car is registered with dvla in my name, but that is for tax and insurance purposes only. it is in fact my 17 year old high functioning autistic sons car that we bought for him to enable us to transport him around, as he finds crowded public transport stressful. it is his car always has been always will be. it was bought privately and he has no receipt. we paid for the car out of my bank account after my husbands aunt died and left us some money. I have been told by various sources that we can get a statutory declaration stating that it is my sons car and therefore the bailiffs cannot take it. is this correct and how do I go about getting one?? many thanks

I know enforcement officers can query the DVLA for a number plate to find the registered keeper of a vehicle, but can they do the reverse - run a query at the DVLA for name and address to find out if the enforcement target has any vehicles registered to them? Also, I transferred my car to one of my sons BEFORE the CCJ was given against me. Can an enforcement officer clamp and/or tow the car registered to my son? Thanks.

Can I pick some brains please? I received an invoice from a building contractor who had money problems and walked off a job leaving it unfinished. There is no written contract and no stage payments were agreed. The invoice was for less than £500 (for the materials used). I didn't hear from the contractor other than a monthly reminder for payment (no letters, just a copy of the invoice). Then a DCA got in touch 'out of the blue' adding a £100 fee to the invoice. I didn't think this was allowed if there isn't a contract or terms and conditions in place that allows for the addition of fees to the debt? I wrote to the DCA notifying them that the invoice was disputed and advising them that I have since had the work inspected by a third party and paid extra to make good and have the work completed. The DCA by way of response have provided a statement from the contractor stating that I didn't allow him to finish the work. The DCA is owned by a firm of solicitors, but they are not writing to me as solicitors. They are writing to me on the DCA letterhead, but their letter is going quite in depth about the dispute and they have asked me for more information and a copy of the third party inspection report. Surely as I have said that this invoice is disputed, that should be enough shouldn't it? They should pass "the debt" back to the contractor. I don't want to provide them with any more evidence relating to the dispute in case this goes to court. Are they just fishing or as the DCA is owned by solicitors, can they go further?

There is land behind my rear garden which is owned private by a company whose details I do not have and can't find. Yesterday a tree on that land has fallen over my rear garden fence - causing considerable damage. I've never made an insurance claim before - do i tell the insurer: 1. The tree was on land owned by a company and that company should pay for all damage? 2. Should I goalso go to a solicitor and ask them to find out the details of the landowner and send them a letter to ask them to pay for the repair (tree is on private land behind my rear garden fence) Attached pic of the damage [ATTACH=CONFIG]48057[/ATTACH] You can just about make out the land behind my rear garden fence and you can see the tree thats fallen over. Please help asap as i'm concerned that people will enter my rear garden that use the wasteland

Can you send a dealer a SAR asking for all information with regards to vehicle you bought from them brand new? Actually in this case the vehicle is a caravan suffering from damp and we want to find out if they carried out a damp test at the previous service in November last year plus we need to know some other information regarding the caravan.

I jointly bought a house in 2007 with my partner at the time. We both got it into arrears although he blames me entirely (he ignores the fact that he didn't give me his half each month) anyway long story short! Acenden took us to court, was granted an order and we arranged a payment plan... Then in July 2011 I had to get an occupation order out against my ex, this was granted and he was removed from the property. The order was then dropped a month later with attachments due to me finding out I was pregnant and him making me believe that he would change. Then in March 2012 he threatened me with burning the house down if I didn't leave. I had to think of my 12year old daughter so we left. He then subsequently moved in 5 months later and changed the locks. I have not been paying towards the mortgage as I have struggled to find another home for myself and my daughter. I also am living in England now instead of Northern Ireland due to my ex. My question is, do I still have rights to a set of keys to the property and can my ex refuse entry to the property as I fear he may have turned it into a growing factory as he always said he would... Please help! Ps I'm sorry if this thread is in the wrong place, couldn't find a relevant section!

Just to mention that I have received two speculative invoices from Town and City Parking. In both cases I have sent the letter below and they have cancelled the tickets rather than pursued the matter further. I know the advice is to ignore but this worked for me with this company. Dear Sir I acknowledge receipt of your “Notice to Owner” reference TCX. I do not acknowledge any liability to company. Your document is no more than a speculative invoice. Despite your reference to a “writ” and a “summons”, your only means of enforcement is through the county court. To do this you would have to establish that there is a contract in existence, that I am the person that you have contracted with and that the “amount outstanding” is not a disproportionate penalty. I do not believe that you are able to satisfactorily establish any of these things. If you believe that you have a legally sound basis on which to proceed with this matter, then you are at liberty to commence proceedings in the county court. The address for the service of papers is X I am aware, of course, of your company and how they generally deal with these matters. Rather than court proceedings I am expecting to receive an increasingly hysterical series of letters from you, debt collectors acting on your behalf and then solicitors before you give up. Please note the following: 1) I specifically deny you consent to process my personal data under Section 10 of the Data Protection Act (1998) or to pass my personal data to any third party. If you do so, I will make a complaint to the Information Commissioner and I reserve my legal rights in this matter. 2) I will not pay your invoice unless ordered to do so by a county court. In these circumstances, I regard any referral of this matter to a debt collection agency as harassment and I will deal with this accordingly by means of complaints to statutory and regulatory bodies and I reserve my legal rights in this matter. Please note that I will deal with this matter in writing only as I require a written record of any communications between us. Yours faithfully Seminole

Hi I have two old credit card accounts with MBNA which have been sold to Arrow Global . I had no joy from Arrow with a CCA request for both account so i did a SAR to MBNA. Neither account had PPI but both will have incurred charges along the way . In the SAR pack i can see no documentation for the transfer or sale of the account to Arrow. Must this be in the pack for Arrow to chase me for the debt . As they are old accounts 2001 and 2004 i have included the CCA in the SAR pack for anyone able to quantify them . I currently pay both accounts £1pcm still to MBNA for the past 2 years while things are tight . Many Thanks

Hi All I'll try to keep it brief Day 1 - I purchased a 2002 car for £1500 from a dealer, 1 year new MOT, 5 mths tax. I viewed the car, but didnt test drive (i know!) and all seemed fine. Purchased it, was given a little paper work that i never looked at and one key and started my journey home. I noticed on the way that there were 2 warning lights on the dash. When arriving home i searched online and these were ABS/ESP faults (im kinda dumb when it comes to cars) and also noticed that the key given to me was manual, and the alarm wouldnt work as it needed the remote fob. I also looked through the paperwork given and noticed advisories on the MOT for 2 x tryes near legal limit and exhaust deteriated. Now i know based on the above, i should have been a more savy consumer, however the car was advertised online as excellent condition with alarm and there were no mention of advisories or any faults in the ad or in person by the dealer at time of purchase. Day 2 - i then tried calling the dealer the next day (3 calls in total) but he was never avail to take my call, i explained in brief the situation to the person who answered the phone, and was assured the message about faults would be passed on. Day 3 - The next day being a Saturday, i decided to get a quote for the advisories, and was told that tyres need replacing urgently, and exhaust its completely rusted, so in the interest of safety and roadworthiness decided to pay for repairs. I had every intention of keepping the car. Day 5 - Come Mon, i tried phoning the dealer again, and again too busy or not avail, so emailed them advising the faults up to that point, and although i have replaced 2 tyres/exhaust, i was ok with this as i would get the future benefit, but wanted the other times sorted by them. No reply to email. Day 7 - Looked on the VOSA website, and found out that the car previously failed an MOT a few weeks earlier for ABS fault, rear coil spring incomplete, and a few other things. At this point i was concerned as the fault was present at time of purchase! Day 8 - After 3 more calls to the dealer, finally spoke to the person who sold the car to me, went over the faults we decided that i would call back the next morning to arrange a time to come in to check it out. Day 9 - called again 2 times, guy was not avail, messages passed on. By this stage i'm fed up. Day 10 - today, decide to pay for a diagnostic, which highlighted £500 in repairs (clutch, brakes, lumdar ) and that one ABS sensor was completely missing, which baffled the mechanic, as this obviously meant it was missing since i purchased, so car was clearly not fit for purpose. Armed with this, called dealer again, and you guessed it, not avail. So, dumb as i am, and as the quote to replace ABS sensor was less than £100 i decided to fix, in the hope that would be the end of it and i could start enjoying the car. Part replaced by mechanic, however after diagnostic, ABS/ESP fault still present, and would require alot more investigation, could be ECU which costs anything from £400 - £900!. I asked the mechanic to check the rear coil spring (fail from previous MOT), and you guessed it "incomplete" The car failed an MOT on 2 points, then passed a week later, but clearly both faults are still there. I now want to reject the car because it needs £400 more work doing along with the unknown cost to fix ABS/ESP. the car was clearly not fit for purpose, but as i've paid £600 in repairs already on this, can i claim the cost of the car and repairs to date? I did do the advisories in good faith (this makes up £500) to ensure the car was safe to drive, but i never dreamed of the problems to come. I know i can ask the dealer to repair somethings, but i have lost faith in this car and him, and just want all my money back and move on. Where do i stand? (sorry about the length of this)

Just wondered if anyone can advise me on what line I should pursue. I am currently in the early stages of court proceedings on another thread for an Egg loan - which led to me reading other things on this site, particularly lots of stuff about Egg cards. Can anyone advise me on whether or not I have anything worth pursuing. Will summarise; In 99 or 2000 took out an Egg card online which ran ok for many years. I know I had PPI and account ran up and down to around £11k. A few years into the account i questioned the need for the PPI and they stopped it. (not sure of exact dates) Account balance eventually dropped to about £4k and last year i asked them questions about the PPI but was told I was wasting my time as the application was done online and i'd ticked the box! I got into financial difficulties early this year, did an 'income and expenditure exercise and offered each of my creditors a monthly payment pro rata. Egg ignored my letters for 3 months (but managed hundreds of phone calls, 3 further letters of their own, texts etc) and then issued a Default Notice! 6 weeks later they sent a further letter terminating my account and handed it to a DCA called DLC. They agreed to the monthly amount that i'd offered Egg within a matter of days!! I'm assuming that the debt was probably sold on. My question is this - Does anybody have an opinion on what I should be doing now/next? Should I be issuing anything to Egg or DLC at this stage or should I let sleeping dogs lie? Any advice gratefully received.