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hi everyone, today i recieved a letter from the pension service informing me from the 15th may 2019 benefit rules are changing. in most circumstances this means that both members of a couple will need to have reached pension age to be eligible to make a new claim to pension credit or housing benefit. i am 66 this year and my wife is 61 so my wfe wont retire untill she reaches 66 in 5 years so does that meen if i decided to make a claim for housing benefit id get nothing untill me wife reaches 66? many thanks for any advice or help

I am just getting round to starting my PPI claims - somewhat late I know. Please can someone let me know what the first step would be after remembering which companies I had the loan or cc with. Would it be a SAR request?

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to put this on so Mods, please feel free to move. I lost my permanent job late in 2016. Being older (almost 60 at the time), I've found, like many others in my age group that it's almost impossible to find a job. I was asked at the Jobcentre if there was anything I could do to become self-employed. I am a good pianist and had been working towards getting my Diploma after an exam break of 40 years, thinking ahead to when I retire. I am one of the women caught in the 50s trap, no husband and a son who's still recovering from a recent kidney transplant. Life is not easy for us Anyway, I got approval from the NEA to start a teaching business. To date I have not had a lot of interest despite advertising, my website, leafleting doors and anywhere else I can push my business. Just two adult students since I launched on 3rd January 2018 and I didn't get them until October. It seems the NEA and the Jobcentre don't communicate very well. The Jobcentre has taken my start up day from the 18th November 2017. The NEA says I started trading on the 3rd January 2018 which is the date I launched the website and my business. I now get £0 in Universal Credit, the reason being they are using the Minimum Income Floor of £1092 per month which is based on best case scenario estimation. I thought, fine, I don't get a penny from them but what I didn't get told is that my rent (council) wouldn't be paid either. This MIF is a hypothetical figure. Even from when I put in the business plan I have had to drop my prices to £10 for half hour and £19 for a full hour. This week I will earn £10 as one of my students can't come for personal reasons. You can imagine my shock to find out the last payment the council received was on the 11th December 2018. I am now in serious danger of losing my home and my son and myself being thrown out into the street. I am 62 years old and my son is, as said earlier, still recovering from a kidney transplant which has not gone particularly smoothly. I am really at my wits end. Something I thought would put us on the path to a better and more stable future has turned into a nightmare and I've done nothing wrong. I was given a hard choice by the Jobcentre. Either give up my business which I've worked hard to promote and prove I've done that (how do you kill a website - I've already paid for the website and domain for a year, that doesn't end until December this year) and let down my two students, one of whom is very good and practising for her Grade 1 exam later this year or claim UC and completely kill the business. Not knowing that my rent was not going to be paid, I chose to keep on my business as I know it is the type of thing that will take time to build. A year (in my case less) is not a long time. The Jobcentre has now closed my UC claim but I have until May to reinstate it. I have gone without, don't go out or do things other people do. I have been trying to get a job, either part or full time to help things out but get turned down constantly, usually by the agencies who come up with one excuse or another not to put me forward for jobs, the latest excuse being I haven't worked in an office for a year! 45 years experience as a secretary, often working at Managing Director level doesn't count. I met last week with a representative from the NEA who didn't really seem to know why the MIF is playing such a big part in this or even why it's stopping me getting UC to top up my earnings. One can work 16 hours without losing UC or if working 30 hours, similar to the old Working Tax Credits which even applies to self-employed people. These are the people promoting this ghastly scheme and if they don't know how are the rest of us supposed to know? I spoke with the benefits office (their call centre in Scotland) on Friday. Lady there said I would have to get a Mandatory Reconsideration but that could take weeks and may not even be successful. I just tried to reinstate the UC claim - supposedly a one click operation. No, it isn't. Question upon question regarding employment if you work for a employer but absolutely nothing related to being self-employed (I have not completed these questions as they were ambiguous). The Jobcentre advisor I had (or have) is a very nice person but came across as not knowing that much about the NEA scheme (which is run by Pinnacle People). I feel I have been lied to and misled and I'm sure I'm not the only one. From what I've gathered so far, it would seem that if I had started up my piano business on my own, without the NEA scheme I could have declared it to the Jobcentre as casual earnings and they would have simply deducted what I earned from my UC payment. Why there is such a difference between this and being self-employed via the NEA Scheme just doesn't make sense. I hope someone sees this or knows of someone who has gone through this that can point me in the right direction. I'm sorry this post is so long but I really am at my wits end to the point it's making me quite ill.

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I am a divorced man who has met a new lovely lady and we get on superbly. I own my house outright and I live on my private occupational pension. My new lady lives on benefits and lives in a rented flat. I understand that I cannot stay with her more than two nights per week in order not to affect her benefits claims etc. OK I understand that and have no problem with it. I have only stayed in her flat for one night in seven months. However, I've heard that she cannot spend more then two nights per week with me in my private house without it affecting her benefit entitlements. Is that correct? Any advice would be much appreciated.

Hi everyone Hopefully I am in the right place but couldn't find a section to suit this .... I am really annoyed. My Hive heating set up is broken. After 3 or 4 calls to Hive including 2 resets of the system etc etc (an hour on the phone each time), they have conluded over the phone that my hardware is broken. Now for a start, no engineer has seen it to confirm something is broken - I don't think it is, I think it is on the blink due to an update they did of the system over Christmas. There is no signal between all three components at the same time. Initially the Hub was offline and would not go online and the thermostat lost signal with the receiver. I called Hive and after about 50 mins on the phone and much fiddling, she concluded that my Hub was broken and quoted me £40 for a new one. Fair nuff I thought but was reluctant to buy anew one so I didn't. 2 days later it all went wrong again and the thermostat/room controller would not connect to the receiver so no heating or hot water at all. On the phone to Hive they guided me through another reset of the system and she concluded that the Thermostat/controller was not working - odd eh? Oh and no I can't buy a new thermostat as they are factory paired so the whole kit for £250 plus installation (hard wiring) = £400. Great, not. After yet more fiddling (by now I know how to do almost as much as the call centre staff) and hey presto the thermostat now talks to the receiver but not the Hub. This means that I have only the temperature and ON/OFF functions but no schedule or timer. It is now costing me a fortune as it is all on either 24/7 or nothing. My question/issue is this: How long are they meant to last? I would say that 4.5 years for a cost of £250 is not long enough considering this came with my new boiler installation (from British Gas) and thats guaranteed for 10 yrs minimum. Should I or anyone be expecting to buy new controller for the heating every 5 years at £400? I see their guarantee is for 1 year only. They obviously don't really know why my system has failed and are grasping at straws, should they be telling consumers to shell out again for a new system when the fault is not actually properly diagnosed? How could I prove it has been caused by their update recently where many people I see online have complained about their system going down and losing signal afterwards. Of course Hive deny it's anything to do with them. I think all this needs exploring. If they are selling this product, people need to know that it will all be useless in 5 years and that maybe the system is designed to fail after a period of time. You cannot repair or replace parts of it, you can only get a whole new set up. Also I want to say that for the elderly, young children, ill people, I would definately not trust this system to deliver consistent heating/ hot water reliably, I have woken up with no heating or hot water in the freezing cold because it has dropped signal in the night, even before these recent problems. What are my rights here? These systems are starting to fail (the early ones) and for £400 initial cost, I never expected that after the 1 year warranty was up, I'd be on my own with non-working junk and a cold or boiling hot house 24/7 expecting to shell out again. I feel like I've been had. Help!

My problem now is. I've ordered a new VW T roc from my local VW dealer on PCP and paid £250 deposit. I've put my Golf in p/x which was also on PCP with a small amount of negative equity on it, which will be encompassed within the PCP agreement payments for the new car. I'm happy with the cost. The car is due for delivery in March. Last night I discovered the VW T roc owners forum on the internet and there are 19 pages of comments by disgruntled new T roc owners complaining of there new car kangarooing in 1st gear and some also in 2nd gear especially when the engines cold. Apparently it's only on VW's new 1.5 petrol engine which I have ordered. The same is happening on the Skoda and Seat cars using the same new 1.5 VW engine. These owners have taken there vehicles back to there respective dealers and they are unable to fix the problem. VW UK technical have got involved, sometimes they tell the owners they are not aware of any problem with the new engine, and sometimes say they are working on the problem and have been for months (they cant make there mind up which) A couple of new owners are going to reject the new cars and others have sold them early because of the fault. They are not happy because otherwise they really like the cars they have bought. However some owners don't appear to have kangarooing fault. My predicament is.....do I cancel the order and risk losing my £250 deposit, or keep it and take delivery. If I take the chance and take delivery, and it has the kangarooing fault can I reject it immediately within 30 days without giving the garage the chance to fix it (which it seems they cant as VW UK Technical cant work out a fix) If I reject it I can anticipate that with my luck I will end up with a big battle with the dealer and VW finance. If they do accept the vehicle back will they return the Golf to me, what if they have sold it? Shame really because I've bought a few VW's from this dealer before and I've always been impressed with them. I also really like the car. Problem is with VW they have left there reputation in tatters with the emissions scandal, that's always in the back of my mind. £21K is a lot of money if the car turns out to be a lemon which cant be fixed!

Hi everyone! I am new here. Stumbled upon this forum recently and really enjoyed it. So, I decided to join the community and look forward to interesting discussions.

Wonder if you can help, as received a letter from a creditor saying I had not responded to a claim form served on me and the creditor is now applying for default judgement. I know nothing about this, i will call the court at 9am - but reading around i can see i have to complete a N244 form and pay £255? is this correct as can't afford this?

Could someone please point me at the appropriate bit of legislation that best suits the following problem. Hints regarding any known, suitable course of action would be appreciated as well. Rather than ask loads of questions on here, I’d like to try and work out what to do, then ask questions when I’m aware of the basics. There are no names and no pack drill as I don’t want to alienate a dealer -yet. It’s tricky to decide what is unnecessary detail, so I’ll take advice on how much I should post here but in short: We are experienced and extensively travelled motorhomers. We bought a new £60,000+ motorhome last year, part exchanging our old one at approx £42,000. The handover started on 30th November 2017. There were several significant faults discovered during the handover, ie, leaking water system, faulty lighting system, faulty battery charger. They were addressed by the dealer and we took delivery late in the day. We stayed at the dealers overnight but by the next morning we had to get them back to fix others. One (an inoperative fresh water pump) was fixed and an agreement made to return with the remainder, along with any others that arose, at a later date, That’s where it all began. We have had a LOT more go wrong. Some have been fixed, others fixed and reappeared, parts replaced only to fail again. Some are significant, eg: - water ingress from a roof window. - a bed with broken slats, no ventilation and serious condensation problems. - basins and a shower that will not drain properly and smell. I could go on – and on – and on…………………….. We persevered and have spent a lot on improving the specification, eg, solar panels, inverter, water filtration, loo ventilating system, etc, etc, but now, after the latest broken, mouldy bed incident............................. The bottom line is we are so sick of it, we want rid of it. It is NOT what you expect when spending £60,000. Heaven knows if it will ever stop being a problem. Some of the faults turn out to be significant design problems. It is spoiling all our use of it and we cannot trust it any more. What should I be looking at to find out our rights and to what extent can we demand a remedy, up to and including a different vehicle, or refund? Will

Hi People Every month without fail we receive the usual letter from TVL, you know the one that always starts " ... no record of a TV Licence ... ", now usually when we receive this letter it is addressed to "The Legal Occupier", well this months letter was different. This month the letter was actually addressed to my wife by name. It seems that this is a new approach, maybe they got fed up with all the returned letters! I am interested as to why it was addressed to my wife, as the it was addressed to "Ms ..." not "Mrs ..." which is the title she uses It doesn't really bother me who it is addressed to as it pretty obvious who its from, so it still goes into the recycling box, but its seems to be an interesting new approach.

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Hello folks, I tried taking out a mobile phone contract with EE in 2016. I was declined and, on contacting EE, was told there were three T-Mobile accounts in my name from 1999-2002 (approx) with an outstanding debt of around £450 in total. I finally got round to sending an SAR letter last month and received a reply today. EE have sent me a couple of pages of account notes but no mention of the outstanding amount(s). Firstly: based on this, I'm pretty certain that EE have sent me incomplete data - however, without knowing how their systems work, I don't know _what_ data they must hold on me, but at the very least, somewhere, there must be a total amount owed. Secondly: the notes say that I disputed that the accounts were mine (which I did), and EE decided that it wasn't fraud because the accounts were opened using my name, address and date of birth. I genuinely don't remember opening these accounts. How can EE be so certain that I opened these accounts simply by checking that my name, address and date of birth match? I just want these accounts removed from my record so I can, should I still want to, take out a new phone contract with EE. Is there anything I can do here, or do I just need to accept defeat and find a different mobile phone company? Thanks in advance Alex

I'm not sure if I am in the right area, but hope someone can re-assure us we are doing the right thing. I am a leaseholder in a block of retirement apartments. Two years ago, with 100% agreement of all leaseholders in the block (70) some residents acquired RTM and after lots of visits to other blocks, and doing all the checks they could, the RTM company employed a new MA. After 12 months they decided that these new MA's were actually worse than the original ones, so they terminated the agreement after 12 months by highlighting breaches, using a solicitor. They then employed another MA who, after 12 months, appears to be extremely efficient etc. The problem we have is that the 'old' MA won't release our fund to the new MA. They promised on four occasions over a period of 5 months to hand over at the end of a month, and, to date, they have handed over approximately 30% of our funds. After 3 months, we employed a leasehold solicitor to chase the funds. We were informed that we had to know exactly how much they owed us, by virtue of audited accounts. As the MA would never issue bank statement, invoices or monthly financial updates, we cannot do this. So the legal advice was to go to court to obtain all the account documentation. This was set for a date 10 months after the contract was terminated. Two weeks before the hearing, and after yet another broken promise of transferring the funds, the MA wrote a 'without prejudice' letter saying they would hand all the funds and paperwork over but not until a week after the hearing, as it would take that long to produce the final accounts. Because of this, our solicitor advised us to adjourn the hearing as it would save the costs of going to Court. The RTM Company refused on the basis of all the previous broken promises. From that we had constant pressure from our solicitor, changing almost on a daily basis, to adjourn. These pressure varied right up to the fact that, in the solicitors opinion, the RTM Company would have to pay costs of both sides, amounting to a total of around £18,000 + VAT. There was also a request for £1,500 + VAT immediately for a barrister, suddenly required three days before the hearing. Never mentioned this before in the cost estimates. Our RTM Company was braver than I would have been - they believed that there was no way the judge would deem them unreasonable knowing all the broken promises they had received. So they still refused to adjourn the hearing. Then came a Tomlin Order, written by 'the other side', which offered all the paperwork we required, except Bank Statements and cheque books, if the hearing was adjourned. I understand from paperwork I have seen that the RTM Company still refused until a point where their own solicitor assured them that the accounts could be quantified without the Bank statements. so they agreed to accept the Tomlin Order and adjourn the hearing. Four days after the time limit set out in the Tomlin Order, some invoices and a ledger run off was received. There was also a copy of service charge accounts prepared by the company themselves, not by an accountant. on looking at these documents, half the invoices were missing and there was not information regarding income to the service charge account or the reserve funds. We are now up to date ..... Our solicitor is now telling us we need to go back to Court to ask the Court to order the MA to obey the Tomlin Order. The RTM has explained to the rest of us leaseholders that they are in dispute with the solicitor as they believe all this will do is allow the MA to break it again and again, and they would have to take it back to the Court time and time again. There seems to be no penalty on the MA for breaking what they believe was an official Court order. the solicitor ignores their request for an explanation, and continues to talk in language that doesn't mean anything (according to the RTM) The RTM is asking for support to change the solicitor at this stage. They want to take the MA to Court for theft as they say simply that it is our money and someone wont give it us back. They want to find a solicitor who would do this for us. A number of leaseholders (who as a reminder are retired) don't really understand what is happening and are extremely concerned and upset that for (now) 12 months we have not been able to correctly manage the block and it is beginning to look a mess, reducing the value of our flats. Can anyone please advise what they would do in our position?

Hiya I'm Peter I'm hoping to get some useful information and tips on how to get myself out of a hole

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Hello I am posting this on behalf of my father who used parcels2go to return a zimmerframe which cost £89. He also paid for extra insurance on the web site in order to sent this item back. My father was unable to use his printer to print out a label and informed Parcels2go. Parcels2go sent Hermes to collect the parcel. The parcel was collected by a Hermes courier on March 15, 2018 and has been missing ever since ! After numerous chat sessions and emails no progress in finding the parcel whatsoever was made. Hermes admitted that the parcel was lost by them, but told us that we had to contact Parcels2go. Parcels2go said that we should contact the retailer etc .. Long story short Parcel2go offered a refund... only for the delivery costs. The total sum of £12. My father was ready to say goodbye to his money. Luckily I found your website and on Saturday I sent them a letter before action giving them 4 working days to respond, because so much time has already passed. If you read the correspondence it really seems as though they are just trying to waste time . This is what they sent as a reply to the letter before action: Good Afternoon Ashley. Thank you for your email. Firstly, please allow me to apologise for the inconvenience caused to you and your recipient. I cannot see the links you have provided in your email Ashley. If you have sent attachments, we are unable to view this on this account due to security reasons. Please upload this directly onto your claim or email ,,,,,,, Should you have any further queries Ashley, please do not hesitate to contact us. Kindest Regards A Ali Parcel2Go.com What a joke ! We did not send any links or attachments .This whole back and forth with these people has been an absolute nightmare. I think they do it on purpose to wear you down so that you just give up. I convinced my father not to let them get away with this. He paid for a service then paid for insurance for the service ... ( so bizarre. ) Could you please advise us on the next steps to take Thank you so much for taking the time to read this

Hi Everyone Desperately looking for advice and help. My wife and I have a joint Lloyds current account held for 15+ years (I have been a customer for 50 years but that makes no odds). Due to personal circumstances of having a disability I am now in a position of not being able to work. This account has an overdraft limit of £3500 but currently it is £3509.35 O/D. So not much over its actual limit. For clarity we were sensible enough to have a "parachute account" though this is with Halifax, but I believe it to be ringfenced? The Lloyds one is "inactive" and the only movement on it will be Lloyds own charges. We were making ends meet reasonably well and very gradually paying this off, until Lloyds TSB changed their charging regime a year ago. This has nearly tripled our charges from the original charging regime. After the second stage implimentation where the charges went from 1p for every £14 OD to 1p for every £7 OD we have not been able to cope and it is those charges that effectively stopped us being able to get on top of this account, and indeed, pushed it into the £9.35 over the OD limit. When we got the initial letter informing us of the changes in charging (from £14 to £7) I immediately wrote to them informing them that we did not accept their terms and conditions, and what as the way forward in these circumstances? The letter never garnered a reply, and lately, Lloyds have denied ever receiving it. I then complained, after receiving standard threatening letters. I have since spoken to varying departments of differing names, each giving me slightly different stories. I was sent an IE form, but this did not appear to be their standard one, nor from the correct department. All the time my simple question was asking them to outline any ways forward, the consequence of each of those ways, and the costs involved. To me these seemed very simple and sensible questions, as I wanted to know how this would affect my wife and I in terms of credit score (not that I particularly care, since we lost our house to Halifax when I first became ill). I also kept asking them to explain how they were fulfilling their obligations under BCOBS with regard to our case. These requests were out rightly ignored. Lloyds continually refused our direct requests for help and information. Both by letter and phonecall. They seem reluctant to put anything in writing, preferring to talk on the phone. I did start to record these conversations. Eventually, after 6 long months of prevaricating, a Complaints Manager wrote to us, outlining three differing ways forward, however, one involed paying the whole lot in one go, getting a hugely expensive loan, or that they would simply default it, add it to our credit record and probably sell the debt. All these options (bar paying outright) seem to require an IE form. A blank proforma was sent by them and was wholly different to the original one I received (I hasten to add neither have been filled in as yet - as I wanted answers to the BCOBS questions - they had again ignored the question of BCOBS) I was then rung up and told that this account was being moved to some team I had never heard of because it was clear from "our IE form" that we could not afford any payments. This is EXTREMELY interesting as we had never sent one in. On ringing they were pretty adamant one existed and had referred to it on several calls. Not sure, but I consider this to be fraudulent misrepresentation of our IE? Of course no-one could find the "original" (it doesn't exist of course) and a further complaint made. They eventually admitted that there was some sort of error and decided that someone had erred in simply recording that one had been received when it hadn't and it was simple human error. For that they sent a cheque of £100 (doesn't cut it for me frankly). That they kept referring to it suggests to me one was actually there, whether that be someone else's by accident, or one had simply been made up - I suspect the latter as a couple of times it was admitted to me that figures were inputted based on a single, throwaway conversational sentence I had said to someone on an earlier phone call about us having difficulties. This IS NOT, and surely cannot, be termed an IE form? I complained again saying I was unsatisfied with their response, and why they were at it please could they answer the BCOBS question. It inevitably went quiet, until I had a phone call from another team asking me how I wanted to pay. Naturally I hit the roof, (but in a polite and controlled manner - no swearing etc) and bounced it straight back to the caller, who probably wished she hadn't rang. After an hour and a half talking to me (I sure will waste their time) she agreed the responses were not "ideal" and promised to take ownership of the issue, and find out why my complaint hadn't been answered. The account was put on hold for a further 30 days. Of course I heard nothing, until the 30 days were up when I got another demand. A phone call in resulted in the operator again mentioning the IE form (which doesn't exist -and notably, she referred to it first, not me, so despite the admission it is all an error, the error still exists in their records). Of course I complained and was passed to a complaints manager. The Complaints Manager identified that the lady I had spoken to about a month before had passed my complaint to a complaints manager called Shelley. However, she admitted Shelley had done nothing about it and promised to chase it. I asked her to get Shelley to answer the BCOBS question, explain why she hadn't bothered to answer the complaint the firsts time, and I wanted to know the history of the "ghostly" IE form, as I suspected their contention that it was simply a tick box error was not correct. Amazingly I did finally get a reply from Shelley. She ignored the reason she had not replied in the first place, told me the issues surrounding the IE form had been resolved and explained (they haven't), and that when the Bank put their charging structure to the FCA it was approved and therefore met BCOBS. She suggested I take the issue up with the Ombudsman - but had to within six months of their "final response" which she contested was much earlier. She didn't mention what letter that is, nor can I find one with the words "final response" on. Further, surely her letter, by being the last, is the final response? Clearly this is an unsatisfactory reply. I am unsure what to do next? This issue is causing my wife and I huge amounts of stress and time, and coming on top of losing your house to the same banking group (though the judge found they had overcharged our mortgage by nearly £10k, not followed proper procedure etc and were severely criticized by him) it is not great. The simple facts of the matter are that I don't feel they have acted in anyway professionally on these complaints, or in any way tried to strike up a sensible, proactive and constructive dialogue with us. Furthermore, they have acted at best unprofessionally, at worse, perhaps committed fraud (or is that a bit strong?) by acting upon an IE form that either didn't exist, or worse, was simply made up. I feel our relationship is wholly broken down and I cannot trust them one iota. It is apparent to me that they will twist, or lie, simply to cover themselves, and conversations are not recorded accurately on their written notational system. For instance on their system they have recorded that I simply refuse to fill out an IE form. First of all I don't think I am under any obligation to do so, and secondly I have never refused, just asked them to outline the options for us first, and explain how they meet their obligations under BCOBS and then I would do it. My other big problem is no single point of contact, various departments that make no sense to me, all seemingly overlapping, but none willing to take ownership, and all blaming each other, or not knowing what has been said. My big questions are: 1) I am unclear of how our account not stands, they haven't said, nor have they said what department it is in, nor what will happen next. 2) how do I get a single, sensible, point of contact with them? 3) I could just pay the £9.35, that wouldn't be an issue, but then next month I guess they would hammer us with a £90 charge, so how does that work? Would we then be £90 over our OD limit? Surely this is what BCOBS aims to stop? I can see that this would just spiral uncontrollably, and it is why I have been trying to keep the account frozen. 4) I could just let them have a default, doesn't really affect us as far as I can tell with credit rating, as ours is poor anyway and we don't apply for credit. However I worry slightly about the debt being sold, but as I understand it if there is a dispute about the amount (there is) then there is little a Debt Recovery agency can do? 5) I have offered to pay £10 or £20 per month, provided there are no charges or interest added to the account. They have refused citing both that our IE form shows we cannot pay it (!!!) or that we haven't given them an IE form. They have also indicated that this sort of amount wouldn't be acceptable to them anyway. 6) We have suggested the charging regime is put back to 1p in every £14 - at least we were slowly managing that. However they have point blank refused; Given their history of messing this issue up and being so unprofessional, that they call it quits and simply write off the £3509.35. They have refused to even entertain either of these. 7) I can go to the Financial Ombudsman, but I see that it has little teeth, and the banks seem to ignore it anyway? 8) Do I have a claim under BCOBS? it is clear with our credit rating we can not go to another organisation for a loan, or account, so Lloyds have effectively "trapped" us into paying extortionately high charges, or otherwise accept their terms, which they are unwilling to discuss or help with. 9) If there is a claim there, how do I go about it? 10) what should I do next re with contact to the bank, given they last sent me a brush off letter? Really sorry for the extremely long post - probably too much info?

Hi, I was driving my Mini Cooper (2011) on my new housing development. I drove over a speed bump which was quite high, and as the car came down from the speed bump, the bottom of the car (sump tank) caught a raised drain directly after the speed bump. This resulted in the entire engine oil being leaked across the road. I didn't realise until around quarter mile down the road the oil light came on. I didn't drive the car any further and had to have it towed to a garage. The garage have said that it doesn't look to have damaged the engine, and it will cost £800 to fix everything due to no after market parts being available. However, I was hoping to get some advice on how to proceed. The roads aren't the responsibility of the Council yet, and are technically meant to be maintained by a site management company. They have refused to admit it's their fault. I'm not sure whether to: 1) Go through our insurance and call on their services to repair the vehicle and attempt to reclaim the costs from the site management. 2) Pay the repair costs ourselves and file a small claims court case to try and build a case to recuperate the costs. There were no signs on the road to say raised drains would be higher than the rest of the surface. The speed limit is 20mph which wouldn't have been exceeded due to only just turning out of our street and having to brake to go over the high speed bump. Thanks in advance for any suggestions on the best way to deal with this. I have attached a picture of the drain and road after the incident. As you can see the oil has poured out after coming in contact with the drain. The speed bump is located where the picture was taken from.

Hi, I am worried to death. Last Thursday 27 September 2018, I became aware that I had not one, but three Notices of Prosecution (NoP) against me for speeding in the same location. They are all SP30s from consecutive days, i.e. 17, 18 and 19 September. Naturally I was shocked and confused by this as I had not seen a camera flash or any police speed van in the area and wasn't aware I was doing anything wrong, just going about my normal everyday commute to the office in line with the regular traffic flow. I went and looked for the camera on the road in question but couldn't see one. I was really confused by this. I then received another two NoPs on Tuesday 2 October, this time for offences on 21 and 22 September. I was completely and utterly devastated by this. The following day, I received yet another for the 22 September at a different time. On this day (Saturday) I had been at work helping to run an event so I had been caught speeding both going and coming home too. This is now becoming a joke. Not only that, because I only became aware on 27 September, I am likely to receive more NoPs for 24, 25 and 26 September so I am expecting more to come. I could have the potential for 12 NoPs against me. I use a company vehicle, have zero points on my licence (which I pride myself on) and now face a total ban, and god knows how much in fines. Having now looked into this more, I now realise that a new camera system has been installed on the road in question on a trial basis, apparently it was activated on the 10 September. It is an average speed system; two cameras high up on top of lampposts which I simply didn't see. There was no warning signs, but since then signs have now been put up. There was plenty of warning in local newspapers and on the web but as I don't live in the local area, I live in a different county, I had no warning of these cameras hence the speed trap I've now been caught up in. I am absolutely devastated by this and feel victimised. I have got a solicitor involved but we have only spoken once and she's not filling me with much confidence. I cannot afford to lose my licence. I live in a pretty remote area; no way of getting to work using public transport, I need the car to do my job, I won't be able to get to my aged parents who live 30 mins down the motorway, nor my sister who has MS and lives in Liverpool and I would also have to give up my voluntary work as I wouldn't be able to get there. I have no child dependents. Obviously I have to take this ridiculous situation to court. How can one person receive so many NoPs in this way? How can this be justified? Cameras are supposed to be a deterrent not a trap aren't they? I feel I have had no fair warning to be aware and to alter my behaviour (which I am not denying by the way) but instead, I might as well have been convicted of murdering the same person six plus times. How is that fair or even sensible? It just doesn't make sense. Has anyone ever heard of the like and what advice would you give me? Any help or advice gratefully received as I'm desperately worried. Thanks.

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