FirstPlus

[Goldlady]

I was in court today with a friend and the judge let me speak all the time. He didn't actually ask who I was and seemed quite happy to let me do the talking on my friend's behalf.

 

Also, whilst in the court, the presence of a free advisor for repossessions was drawn to our attention - unlike when I went with my friend about a year ago when there was no-one at all to help. No help to us today as we were on a set-aside application, but just to give you some reassurance that there should be someone there.

 

The very best of luck.

 

Ell-en, do you think Taiko should not mention the PPI at all at this stage, or mention that they are trying to reclaim it back as it was mis-sold?

[Ell-enn]

I've moved the thread to the Repossession Forum as I was unable to attach the statement in the PPI forum.

 

Statement now affixed. You will see where you need to insert the information at the top (XXX's) and also in the body of the statement- don't edit the Claimant and Defendant boxes on the far right.

 

You will then need to print off three copies, one for yourselves, one for the judge and one for the other side.

 

When you get to court make yourself known to the usher and ask if there are any free legal representatives at court who can advise you.

 

The hearing will be in a private room with just the judge, yourselves and a representative for the other side. You will either sit around a table, or facing the judge on either side. The judge will guide you through the process and will be aware that you are nervous. As it is FP's claim he will address them first.

 

You might find that FP's rep will ask to speak to you before the hearing, it is entirely up to you whether you do or not. If you do and you feel they are being intimidating, end the conversation by saying you would rather leave it up to the judge to decide.

 

Let me know if you have any further questions.

 

Goldlady - the PPI has been mentioned in the statement.

 

Ell-enn

Taiko Statement.doc

[taiko]

Dear Ell-enn

 

Thanks for everything. I will go into the court tomorrow with my son and daughter-in-law a little less depressed. I understand that the judge may reject our offer and mitigation plea, but at least I have tried to help them. God bless both you and Goldlady for your assistance so far. I will post on the site tomorrow, irrespective of the outcome.

 

Kind regards

 

Taiko

[Goldlady]

My thoughts will be with you Taiko and I am sure it will be OK.

 

I really don't know what else to say - you have been such a supportive father and I don't really see what else you can do. God bless you and please let us know asap how it goes.

 

And then we can start to put things right:D

[Jane1960]

All the very best to you,will be thinking of you,Hold your head high,Be Strong,we are all Rooting for you,x

[jansus]

Thinking of you as well and hope it goes ok .

 

Having seen that there is a website just for complaints about this company they certainly do seem very difficult to deal with - to put it politely .

[taiko]

Dear All

 

What a day! Goldlady you were right ;free legal representation was indeed offered. However the court usher told me when I asked to be admitted as a "McKenzie Friend" that I should have put my request in writing to the court prior to today.Do you think this is correct Ell-enn? In the event I was able to accompany him into the hearing but what I saw and heard still fills me with dread.

 

My son decided to accept the assistance that was on offer and not to rely on his own presentation and am I glad that he did! Firstly the solicitor who acted for him was briefed and the file of letters and papers I had taken was passed to her. Then she approached the barrister acting for Firstplus (and a load of others) and passed on an offer to settle the total outstanding loan (£44k by your calculations GL) on my undertaking to pay. He contacted Eversheds who rejected the offer outright and told him they wanted payment of loan (£54k by their reckoning) + PPI (£13k) and to go for possession today. So much for the Governments' request to Barclays(ie FP) et al to deal sensitively with individuals who try to make an effort to shoulder a fair level of resposibility for their actions.

 

I passed over the statement kindly prepared by Ell-enn to my son's solicitor and a further one I had put together outlining a number of anomalies I had found in the exhibits presented to the court by Eversheds. Wrong Ts & Cs not relating to the loan agreement he signed,Land Registry documents that were ambiguous and interest rate quoted in claim not correct.Claim document quoted IR of 8% seven months after it had been raised by FP to 10%.

 

She was then shown a letter the other sides barrister had been given to show to the judge in support of their application. In essence it consisted of an exact copy of the text of the original letter sent in August 2008, rejecting my sons' claim that the PPI had been mis-sold, which FP had sent directly to him on headed notepaper at that time. However the letter they put into court today was not on FP headed paper and had a date of the 23rd January 2009 on it, as though it had been sent to my son on that day. My son had never received such a letter and in the body of the text it said that if they had not received a positive response to pay off the arrears then they would start court proceedings in eight weeks! (Court already listed for 4th February 2009 by that date.) To me it appears that FP /Eversheds seem to have put an untrue document into a court knowing full well that it was a pack of lies in an attempt to somehow give a false impression that my son was not responding to them and they deserved possession.

 

The worst was yet to come. The judge was very dismissive of the offer my son had made today and said that surely,rather than waiting until today,he should have at least kept up payments on the outstanding loan amounts during the time whilst the PPI was in dispute. He was also quite hard to my mind on the solicitor who appeared for my son. He was quite rude both to her and to my son and gave the impression that he had little sympathy for either of them and that he had already made his mind up to grant the possession prior to my son appearring before him.My son's solicitor almost had to beg him for more time to gather evidence relating to the anomalies we had found in FP's case.Rather reluctantly he finally gave a decision to grant an adjournment for 28 days. This was conditional on my sending a cheque to FP in the sum of £549 as a monthly payment + £2000.00 off the accumulated arrears within a few days.

 

All in all I am very depressed by today as it appears as though FP can act in a cavalier manner towards a court and not be instructed to comply with both the letter and spirit of the law by a judge when they are clearly not trying to resolve a dispute.

 

I now intend to push ahead with complaints about FPs' actions to the FOS and the Information Commissioner. When my head has cleared I will come back for assistance from CAG members to fight these cheats.

 

Hope that something can be put together.

 

Taiko

[Ell-enn]

Oh Dear sounds like you got a very grumpy judge - it was always going to be difficult given that no payments had been made for a very long time and the fact that your son cannot afford the mortgage installments. However, at least you have 28 days to get things together.

 

Did you receive any advice regarding what you should do next from the legal rep who helped you today? I do think you should get a solicitor to help you with the upcoming hearing.

 

Ell-enn

[Goldlady]

I have never come across the McKenzie friend giving notice thing ever before and I have been to court many times with friends and with fellow Caggers (who are now friends of course!). I agree with Ell-enn that you had a grumpy judge and I think the lack of payments would have irked him, but you did get a stay of execution out of him in spite of that.

 

We need to come down really hard on FP now. Did you tell the judge that the alleged January letter had not been received? In any event it showed their untruthfulness if they were threatening proceedings when they were already under way.

 

You have a long way to go, but you have started so you must finish the battle.

[taiko]

Hi Ell-enn

 

You can certainly say grumpy! The solicitor did suggest a further meeting with us and said that she would look at whether my son qualified for legal aid. I hope he does as I would like to see professional solicitors who know their way around the relevant financial legislation being funded to take on this collection of pond life.I wish I had sufficient funds to pay for such long term help but that is not possible,mores the pity. I would love to see FP staff have to explain their actions and lies and that refusal to show how their decisions were arrived at was not permitted.Has anyone ever got these people to court?

 

I understand that my son not making payments does not look good but the judge was told that he had been in communication with FP throughout the whole time since he last made a payment and that they had not seen fit to move an inch.Moreover when someone such as myself then offers to make settlement of a very big proportion of the debt,as a positive move to resolve the situation, I am frankly appalled that I was treated as if I were the problem and that FP's decision to dismiss the offer out of hand was acceptable.

 

Your advice,as always, Ell-en is good and I wil certainly try to obtain some legal representaion as I do not wish my son to go in front of that judge without a lawyer to help. Will keep posting

 

Taiko

[Ell-enn]

Hi there, certainly take the solicitor's offer of a further meeting, ad keep us updated as to the outcome of the meeting.

 

You never know, you might not get the same judge next time:)

[taiko]

Dear Goldlady

 

The judge was not interested in hearing anything from our side so no mention of the January letter was possible. He gave the solicitor a really hard time and I thought it very unfair on her as until an hour before she had never met my son or I, let alone studied documents relating to the case.

 

I will keep fighting FP as I believe they are the totally unacceptable face of the finacial predators that have brought our financial system to its knees. They appear to have also brought misery and penury to thousands of decent honest individuals who found themselves in financial difficulties. The sooner they are closed down and their practices made illegal the better in my opinion

 

Taiko

[incipience]

Ladies/Gents. As a fellow complainant and owner of a complaints Site, I can tell you that we get visits daily from Several Banks, including the one to which our site is about, time is spent browsing our forums, viewing profiles and reading content.

 

I therefore believe that certain communications in an open forum, can only prejudice the client here, as tactics and methodolgy are being discussed.

 

While I see the importance of discussing openly in order to assist other users in similar situations, one should bear in mind the public access to the forum, and should always therefore consider what is being said. Sensitive responses should therefore be done in private.

 

What is basically happening is that the Lenders Counsel and the Lender are aware of your arguments before court proceedings and are therefore at an advantage.

 

I do wish that Lenders would of course respect the claimants, and of course the goodwill of the board, however from a RISK MANAGEMENT point of view, it is essential for these lenders to know what is going on and how each other lenders are responding to similar complaints.

 

I would like to make a request to the Owners of this Board to allow for some form of Secured Access, where legal advisory priviledge could be observed.

[taiko]

Incipience makes a good point.However I do think that detailed explanations of what goes on, as long as its not prejudicial to ongoing legal cases, about FP's tactics and methods should be broadcast on forums.Only by bringing their actions into the open and turning a spotlight on their activities can we hope to make them accountable and curb their arrogance.

 

One tactic I do think should be considered by as many people as possible is as follows:-

 

Buy one or two shares in Barclays Bank plc (FP's parent company and currently priced at a little over 50pence) and then write letters about FP to their chief executive (I am a disgusted shareholder etc.) and also write to the media.Send copies of your letters to your MP asking that he takes notice of your concerns and requesting he takes your views to the Minister who has responsibility for bank "bailout" by Government funding. I have seen several articles in the financial press recently commenting on Barclays possible need to seek help from this source.Who knows maybe someone will have a quiet word about standards expected etc?

 

I am aware that we Caggers are mostly ordinary individuals with no real power to change things but MP's do tend to take note of widespread public opinion and concerns, especially near to election times, and the media love to publish controversial stories.

 

In my opinion the longer FP are able to hide their actions away from public scrutiny and to conduct their business on their own terms, by using the telephone, the longer it will be before they are held accountable.

 

Sorry it was a long (and possibly inappropriate under site rules) post but it was good to get my opinions off my chest.

 

Taiko

[SPROUTY]

Push for the PPI Refund. apply to the Financial Ombudsman's office if they have taken too long to deal with the complaint or have issued a final response in the matter (& if they have not issued a final response send them a letter requesting it). Try not to be de focused by their court action concentrate on the PPI element that refund alone will help the situation as it was front loaded you have already paid interest on it.

 

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING BARCLAYS OWNED FIRST PLUS THATS WHY THEY SHARE OFFICES.

[SPROUTY]

Push for the PPI Refund. Apply to the Financial Ombudsman’s office if they have taken too long to deal with the complaint or have issued a final response in the matter (& if they have not issued a final response send them a letter requesting it). Try not to be de focused by their court action concentrate on the PPI element that refund alone will help the situation as it was front loaded you have already paid interest on it.

 

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING BARCLAYS OWNED FIRST PLUS THAT’S WHY THEY SHARE OFFICES.

[incipience]

The FOS have a back log of queues a year long now, and FIRSTPLUS complaints are notoriously some of the longest.

 

In the context of the situation in this thread, a member is going through repossession procedings. Clearly it is not in the interest to simply go to the FOS and wait for a resolve, as this matter needs urgent attention.

 

Once Court proceedings have commenced it therefore allows the member to highlight issues with the terms of the contract and ultimately the additional premiums levied and associated costs of such.

 

The member must come across as fair and reasonable despite the opposite approach from the lender.

 

If issues do exists with the PPI, the judge is likely to take these issues into consideration and therefore possible to grant recission of the PPI policy.

 

Now I do appreciate the FOS are able to deal with cases of a Vanilla nature, they are neither educated or equiped to deal with issues of common law, issues such as agency law and unfair terms really should be dealt with by a court.

 

The issues of this case are many, firstly, firstplus never disclose commissions paid or recieved from insurer, or to a broker. This could be deemed as a party to a breach or a direct breach of its fiduciary duty.

 

These are just a few issues, as the list is exhaustive.

[jansus]

Really sorry to hear how the case went - but at least you do have some time to try and sort this out.

 

I think sometimes ( and I bow to Ell-enns experience on this) when a relative offers to pay the arrears or assist then it will be taken into account if the borrower can be shown definitely to be able to contiinue with the current MP. If not than the court will consider they are just post-poning the inevitable and actually incurring more costs for the borower. Therefore it is very important to get this point accross. In respect of the PPI I am not sure if the courts are obliged to take this into account - although they have in some cases definitely given the borrower more time to try and get a definitive answer if it would affect the arrears position ( thinking of the black horse thread)

 

Hope you are able to get your documents and evidence to together to prove how they have been acting and that the solicitor can be of help.

 

Is there anything on the First Plus complaints site that would help you?

[incipience]

Nothing on the Firstplus complaints site will help the member here, as most of the legal stuff is now secured away from prying eyes in a private forum. What I can tell you is that there are cases going to court that involve the sale of PPI amongst a few other issues, just waiting to hear the results of such.

 

However what is clear is there are issues much bigger than the sale of PPI, in the coming weeks one should pay close attention to the media especially with regards to Firstplus.

[taiko]

Both Jansus and Incipience have made me think that I should conduct discussions of issues involving the court case either through private messages with trusted individuals from this site or through emails. Is this possible given the rules for operating this site?Obviously anything that is non-sensitive I would share in the public areas.

 

Is it possible to access guidence from the private forum mentioned by Incipience?How does one become a member?

 

Surely some part of the media are on First Plus's case?

 

Taiko

[incipience]

The media have contacted the members over at FPC site, and I have personally spoken to two financial journalists who are working on stories at the moment.

 

The FPC site is more about raising media awareness, but does have access to some great solicitors and companies who are helping the members.. this of course is legally privelleged information and is therefore discussed directly between member and counsel, outside of the forum.

[taiko]

Hi everyone

 

I am still trying to find out exactly how I can make Firstplus and Eversheds give me an accurate breakdown of the charges and penalties they have levied on my sons account since the start of this saga. I am also very concerned that everything I post is being monitored by them and used to thwart my attempts to get some semblence of justice from them. They appear to have the judge on their side and I feel very much that I am fighting a lone battle and that a credible defence is still far away.

 

Does anyone have an opinion on whether a legal charge document signed and witnessed but not yet registered at the Land Registry office can be said to be secured on the property and so form the basis of getting a possession order?Or is the debt an unsecured one?

 

Taiko

[Goldlady]

Taiko, we can get the thread made private so that only people who are already involved or who you want to be involved can access it. I am sure the Mods will love to do that:p

 

I think if the forms have not been sent to the Land Registry then the charge is not valid. I have a similar situation with my friends' case - they keep being asked to return the LR forms for a charge which should have been registered two years ago and so far we have not returned them:rolleyes:

 

When you say you haven't got details of the charges etc, did they not send you a full set of statements? I am typing this now so can't check back to see if you sent them a SAR.

 

Let me know if you want your thread to go 'underground'.

[taiko]

Dear Goldlady

 

Thanks for your response; it's nice to know I am not alone.The SAR was sent in January 2008 but their response was a collection of computer screen shots, copies of letters informing my son of arrears of direct debit payments containing quotes such as "a late payment charge of £27.50 has been added to your account".There are no proper,dated financial type statements detailing chronological lists of payments made, payment amounts due,interest additions and charges applied.

 

Before giving you more details of what is happening and evidence that I have I would appreciate being allowed by the Mods to have this thread restricted to those individuals such as yourself and Ell-enn and other people that you can vouch for as not working for banks DCA's etc.

 

Hope that permission to do so will be forthcoming

 

Taiko

[Goldlady]

Have asked the question;)