We received a letter from Nat West last year, we have a charge on your house and want £265,000 when its sold. Not asking for possession now! Oh, and it was addressed to my sister who has not banked with NW since 1984. This was the start of a nightmare, and when I turned detective! Our house was bought in 1973 on a 45% deposit and 55% mortgage with the then Alliance Building Society. The person who paid the deposit was my sister a single woman who pre Equality act could not have a mortgage on her own, our parents names had to go on it. We are still in the house, but with a massive problem we need some assistance with. This is bizarre, and linked, there are three parts to this. In 1983 my sister decided to have a further advance on the mortgage for home improvements, the solicitor who did the conveyance did the legal work for Alliance this was called a second charge, paid for by my sister. This £8k was paid by cheque to the local Nat West branch. She had a career ending car accident within a few weeks and asked for the money to be returned. The money has been missing ever since. No one at Alliance has ever discussed it, and we have been to the FSO twice. They charged her arrears for not paying the extra mortgage. In 1989 the mortgage was extended to 49 years from 25 years. On the first Ombudsman outing in 1986 it was discovered Alliance were sending documents to the wrong address. We had discovered prior to that the conveyance and mortgage agreement had the address of another house on them. Alliance said it didn't matter. They had sent out a mailshot saying they were extending terms, which we did not get. The copy we were given does not make sense. But was sent on a reply if you don't agree basis and we did not reply so have been told we accepted it. Alliance were not at all nice over my sisters accident, and made it clear they wanted to repossess. They tried twice and each time it was thrown out. Each time we tried to find out about the missing money they would not give any info as one parent had died in 1989 (age 71) (same solicitors did will), and the other had dementia, Alliance hid behind the DPA. They let slip there was a charge and my sister thought it was the second charge. We did a DSAR and were given some paperwork, clearly not all. Anything relating to our parents was not provided. Move on to 2012, the second parent died (age 90), which coincided with the Nat West letter. We immediately contacted Nat West, and they were very patronising and unhelpful. They had a charge, no we could not have the paperwork. Back to the FSO. Nat West opted to time bar the complaint, but did say the charge was for our parents overdraft in 1983. They had turned an overdraft for two pensioners into a charge on a house they had not paid for, without my sister knowing about it. The same solicitors have lost the other parents will, and while looking for a copy in the loft, I found a briefcase which forcing open had some letters in it. In 1983 they had a £2,500 overdraft and only a state pension, it has to be charges. They were both ill with cancer then and not up to Nat West. I found court documents, Nat West had taken them to court and refused to wait for legal aid to come through. The documents show Nat West lied to the court about who owned and paid for the house, my sister according to them resided with them, and did not own any of the house let alone pay for it (from her Nat West account at the same branch). We know my sisters accident solicitor wrote to the court for them asking for time for the legal aid to come through. And I found a letter dated after the hearing from legal aid which had not been agreed even then. By that time it was too late! Alliance have provided some limited paperwork, including an offer of a charge from Nat West in 1983, the same time as the further advance charge and it looks like my sister signed it. On the second page is a handwritten document detailing the property. The first thing I noticed is the address is the same wrong address as the conveyance and mortgage agreement. This address is only on those two documents. In the briefcase is a letter from Nat West to my sisters accident solicitor saying the local Solicitor (the same one as the house purchase, did wills, and the further advance and much more over the years) gave them a charge document to drop round to the house to get her to sign, and she had seen a solicitor first. Nat West had come to the house after the accident, but the document they asked her to sign was to return the £8k, and no she did not see a solicitor first, and nor was she left a copy. Other documents provided by the Alliance DSAR and the documents found, make it clear the local solicitor was acting for Alliance, the family and Nat West all at the same time in 1983. They had a copy of the house conveyance on file and it was in 1984 that it was noticed the address was wrong. A letter puts the £8 in the hand of the Nat West manager in 1984 exactly one month before it went out of date. Another letter in the case from 1986, states the Alliance solicitor told the accident solicitor the £8k was never paid. I think the cheque was never cashed. Alliance are not keen on establishing that! I can prove Alliance started arrears proceedings knowing my sister had not had the money because of the letter from Alliance to the Nat West manger 5 months after it had been received, he was asking what it was for. The covering letter does not specify which account to pay it into. So, here we are. Alliance have refused to do anything about anything because of the DPA and my parent with dementia. Now its a long time ago, and they did nothing in 1986 when there solicitor told ours it had not been paid out. When the first parent died (in an Combat Stress care home) the solicitors dealt with the estate, and did not let on about the Nat West charge they did (did I say the handwriting matched work done for us)! Nat West say they have a charge and want the money, but will not give any details, claim its time barred, will not even tell us what interest they are charging, and will not look for our £8k last seen in the hands of their manager. The local court no longer have the details but say we can go back with the documents we have found including the affidavit, which we can easily prove is a lie. My sister is a pensioner her self now, our legal insurance don't want to know, and she cant get legal aid, can any one help with what to do and how to get help with this? If this goes on the total value of the house will be lost over an overdraft we knew nothing about for someone that did not have a financial input into the house, and is dead.

Hi all, I'd be really grateful if anyone could please explain this one to me, I don't understand it. I received a letter from Ashurst LLP dated 17th December regarding the bank charges test case, and telling me that Alliance & Leicester's business has been transferred to Santander. It goes on to the findings of the test case, and that the OFT would not continue its investigation into the fairness of the charges. It then says that many of the complaints are in template form, and are often not particularised, and goes on 'All of the complaints (which have been on hold pursuant to the FSA Waiver) are now being rejected by Alliance & Leicester and the Financial Ombudsman Service has stated that it will not generally be able to help with cases that involve "template" or "standard letter" complaints about unauthorised overdraft charges. The next part says A & L considers that claims brought on the basis that their unarranged overdraft charges are too high and/or are penalties cannot succeed in light of the Supreme Court judgement and the earlier Commercial Court Judgement on penalties. Although customers could seek to amend their claims and challenge the fairness of the unarranged overdraft charges on other grounds, A & L shares the OFT's view that such challenges have no realistic prospect of success.' I've just received this letter, and I'm afraid I don't understand it, was hoping to find some advice on here about what to do next, it goes on: IN THE (...) COUNTY COURT (the dotted bits are as it is shown on the letter, the court, claim no., claimant name are all left blank) It is ordered that: 1. Unless the Claimant files at Court and serves on the Defendant his amended Particulars of claim with a properly verified Statement of truth, which disclose reasonable grounds for continuing with the Claim, within six weeks from the date of this Order, then the claim will be struck out without further notice. 2. This Order has been made without a hearing under the Court's case management powers contained in the Civil Procedure Rules, Part 3. You may within 7 days of the service of this Order apply to the Court to set it aside or to vary the Order pursuant to Rule 3.3(5) of the Civil Procedure Rules. If you do so, you must file with the Court and serve on the other parties an application that sets out your reason for objection. Please can anybody help, what does all this mean? What 'other grounds'? It is dated 17th December, and I received it in the post last Friday, i.e. 19th January!! :?:

Hello to you all, I wonder if anyone can help. Some time ago, I went after A & L for unfair bank charges. They were bouncing £1 standing orders and charging me a fortune. It ended up about £350 + on charges. The case was stayed until the Office of Fair Trading V Abbey case was settled. I have now received a General Form of Judgement of Order. It states that the matter is listed for directions when the court will consider striking out the claim following of the decision of the Supreme Court test case (office of fair trading v Abbey National) and if the claimant (me) objects to the claim being struck out, written notice is required. I only got the letter this week and if I need to respond, it must be by Tuesday next week. Can anyone enlighten me on what I should now do? Grateful thanks to any help advice offered. I am bricking this as I am only on working tax credits at the moment and this sounds quite serious.

Hi Everyone, I wonder if anyone can help me with Moorcroft. I am new to this so please bear with me. I have taken some advice from reading other similar posts on here, but am unsure how to proceed next. Basically my husband and I once had a current account with Alliance and Leicester which was moved over to Santander when they took over the bank. We got into financial difficulties on the account after my husband was taken ill and I lost my job due to redundancy. All in all, the amount owed is less than £1000. The bulk of the debt we owe is charges that they kept putting on the account like £50 a week for being overdrawn and so we closed the account to stop it getting any worse. We were originally paying the bank back at £10 per month as that was all we could afford, but they stopped hassling us for a while after we told them we couldn't afford the repayment as they were waiting for the outcome of the OFT investigation into the unfair bank charges to see whether they might have to repay some of them. Anyway it has now been passed to Moorcroft who have been harrassing us constantly over the phone and demanding repayment and also threatening home visits. We sent them a CCA request (which they have not complied with after looking at posts on here). We know they received it as it was signed for by them and we thought the next stage would be to send them the "Account in Dispute" letter when the time limit for a reply expires on Monday next week, however today I received this letter from their accounts department. I will type it word for word minus my identifiers. It reads as follows: Dear Mr & Mrs -------, Thankyou for your recently received letter, requesting a copy of your credit agreement pursuant to the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Please note that certain accounts are excluded from compliance with part V of the Consumer Credit Act or are not in fact credit or hire agreements and we believe that our client's account falls into one of these categories. We therefore require immediate payment of the sum outstanding or alternatively your client's realistic proposals for repayment of the same. Should you have any questions or require any additional information please do not hesitate to contact us direct on the above telephone number. Yours sincerely Accounts Department (signed with a squiggle!) The repayment request is rather badly worded as though they are addressing our legal adviser (although we do not have one) and the letter is adressed to us both! They also returned the £1.00 postal order we sent with the letter. Please can somebody help us? Were we wrong in sending the CCA request? I followed advice on here given to help someone with a Lloyds TSB debt but later realised that that gentleman's debt was for an unsecured loan he had with that bank. Have we made ourselves look totally stupid? and would a current account such as ours really be excluded from compliance with part V of the Consumer Credit Act? or is this just another scaremongering tactic from Moorcroft to try and bully us into paying? We would really like some advice on what to do next. Whether to go ahead and send them the "Account in Dispute" letter on Monday when the time limit for complying with the CCA request is up? or whether we really cannot do that due to the fact this is not a credit or hire agreement as they say? We have already sent them the harassment letter template letter after the constant phonecalls and threat of a home visit and this seems to have stopped the calls for now. I am really hoping that this is just more threats on their behalf and that we have done the right thing. I feel sick with worry and close to a nervous breakdown because of the stress they are causing. I am in tears every day and I have health problems which are being made worse myself. Really hoping some kind and knowledgeable person can help us here. Thanks so much for any replies.