Natwest have taken us to court - please help

[peep]

Please help me as i'm really worried sick.

 

Firstly the NatWest are persuing us for £4775.00, this whole amount is made up from their bank charges, with the exception of £300. We initiated the court process last year and they made us an offer. We refused their offer and we opted to await the outcome of the test case before making a cliam online against them.

 

They requested that we do this but before we knew it we were contacted by the bailiffs who wanted to attend our address and draw a list of our possessions that could be sold to pay the debt. We explained what paperwork we had received from Natwest and the whole process we had been through. Needless to say they went back to Natwest and did nt take the case on. We were told by them that Natwest had to sort some things out about offers we had been made and Natwest would contact us when t hat was completed.

 

Anyway today we received the county court notice and relevent paperwork to defend the claim. Now i am really panicking and just dont know what to do.

 

I didnt think that the test case had been concluded but to be honest i have been seriously ill since the beginning of January so could easily have missed the outcome as i have been in hospital and am still very ill.

 

I have tried searching for threads about the test case but the medications i'm on leave me very groggy and useless mentally and i have not managed to come upwith anything.

 

I hope someone can point me in the right direction

 

thankyou

 

Peep

Edited May 10, 2008 by peep

[citizenB]

Peep, just bumping your thread to the top of the list.. Someone with experience will be along soon to help you I am sure.

 

What I think the experts will want to know is what kind of paperwork you have received so if you can blank out your details and scan the documents you have received into your thread that will help .

[Docman]

The test case [the OFT v the Banks] is still very much on. The case was heard in January for about 3 weeks at the end of which the judge indicated he would not be giving his judgement until at least May. For that, read July.

 

That is the first stage, in the High Court. Both sides have indicated if they loose, they will appeal to the Court of Appeal. That means a further delay. Natinwide, for example, are saying it will be the end of the year before there is a decision. I think there will be a further appeal to the House of Lords, when we will get a final decision - sometime in 2009 if we are lucky!

 

Now, turning to your case. You will need to counterclaim for the full amount of the unlawful charges, even if this exceeds the bank's claim. You will have to pay a fee (either £40 or £75 unless you are on benefits) when you file the defence and counterclaim. It is highly likely the bank will then ask for a stay until the end of the test case. Otherwise, they run the risk of having to prove the validity of their charges.

[peep]

Thanks for the replies,

 

I have received the first notification from the court that a claim has been made against me.

I have applied to the court against jurisdiction and stated that i wanted to dispute the whole amount.

I will have to submit my defence at a later date.

I'm just hoping that it goes in our favour as we desperatly need it too.

 

I dont have a scanner but if you let me know what paperwork would be usefull i'll type the info in.

 

Thanks again

[citizenB]

bumping xx

[Docman]

Is the form from the court called a N1?

 

If so, can you type out the 'particulars of Claim' from the top togethre with the dates you have to send a defence to the court?

[pt2537]

In the XXXX County Court

Claimant -v- (YOUR NAME)

Claim Number: (CLAIM NUMBER)

 

 

Dear XXX

 

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

 

I have received a recent court claim from your organisation. In order to file a defence and counter claim I require some information. Given that this matter is now the subject of legal proceedings, you are obliged to disclose under the Civil Procedure Rules, the information and documents detailed below.

 

The information must be furnished within fourteen days of the receipt of this letter. If you fail to comply, this will be reported to the Court, a copy of this letter will be provided as evidence to the same and an Order enforcing your compliance will be sought.

 

1. A true copy of the executed credit agreement and any terms and conditions that applied to the account at the time of default and at the time the account was opened.

2. All records you hold on me relevant to this case, including but not limited to:

 

a. Transcriptions of all telephone conversations recorded and any notes made in relation to telephone conversations by your company, or by any previous creditor

b. Where there has been any event in my account history over this period which has required manual intervention by any person, I require disclosure of any indication or notes which have either caused or resulted in that manual intervention, or other evidence of that manual intervention in relation to my account formerly held with *********.(AMEND TO THE COMPANY NAME)

c. True copies of any notice of assignment and/or default notice or enforcement notice that you or the original creditor sent me, with a copy of any proof of postage that you hold.

d.Documents relating to any insurance added to the account, including the insurance contract and terms and conditions, date it was added and deleted (if applicable).

e. Details of any collection charge added to the account; specifically, the date it was levied, the amount of the charge, a detailed financial breakdown of how the charge was calculated, and what the charge covers.

f. Specific details of the fees/charges levied by any other agency in respect of this account and a detailed breakdown of said fees/charges and what each charge relates to and on what date said fees/charges were levied.

g. A genuine copy of any notice of fair use of my data as required by the Data Protection Act 1998

h. A list of third party agencies to whom you have disclosed my personal data and a summary of the nature of the information you have disclosed.

i. Copies of statements for the entire duration of the credit agreement.

 

3. Any other documents you seek to rely on in court.

 

 

I will require this information within the next fourteen days. I must advise you that if the information is not forthcoming, it will be reported to the Court that you are trying to frustrate proceedings and denying me the opportunity to file a defence and counter claim.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

XXXX (type, don't sign).

 

 

 

Hi there

 

As Docman said if you can post the POCs that would be great

 

also, send them the above letter, edit it to suit your circumstances and send it special delivery as a matter if urgency

[peep]

Hiya,

 

Thankyou again for all your help, Firstly is this thread in the right place to be seen or i have miss placed it.

 

I can confirm that the paperwork i received is the N1 CPC Claim form (04/06). The particulars of the claim say.

 

The Defendant (1) held the accounts as listed below witht the claiment ©. D failed to pay the sums due to C when demanded and the sums that remain outstanding under the respective accounts are listed below

 

Account number Debit Balance

 

In addition C claims interest pursuant to section 69 of the county courts Act 1984 at the tare of 8% per annum from 15/11/2007 to payment, both before and afetr judgement Number.

 

It is signed Jim Taylor

Shoosmiths

The Lakes

Northampton

NN4 7SH

 

hope this helps

[pt2537]

Nope your in the right place so no worries

 

right, moving on to the POCs

 

they are very poor, i take it there were no other documents served with the claim form?

 

why also would you argue against the courts jurisdiction ? it has the authority to hear the case so i dont think that is too wise but hey ho thats life

 

you need to send the part 18 letter above to them ASAP and can you confirm when your defence needs to be in please

[peep]

Hi again,

 

Today we received the following letter from Shoosmiths solicitors, deatails are as follows:

 

Date 20th March 2008

 

Dear Sir

 

Natwest v us

Account references

Balance outstanding

Claim number

 

We write to confirm that we have received Notice of issue from County Court Bulk Centre confirming that our client will be at liberty to request judgement against you on 6th April 2008.

 

We would remind you that once this step is taken you will have a county court judgement registered against your name. This will have an adverse effect upon your credit rating.

 

As previously stated, our client will not refrain from entering judgement on the basis of instalment payments and requires a lump sum payment in settlement of the debt. We would invite you to consider your financial circumstances and should you be in a position to offer such a lump sum to our client thn please contact Hannah Braeman on 01604 543248.

 

If you contact us on the above number with conformation that you will be in a position to amke a lump sum payment to our client it may be that our client will be minded to give you a further short period prior to requesting judgement to make the payment.

 

We would remind you that it is strongly in your interests to make payment as soon as possible to potentially obtain a discount on the figure outstanding and to avoid the further fixed costs which will be added to the debt.

 

Shoud you have any queries in relation to the contents of this letter then we would urge you to contact a local solicitor, your local citizens advice bureau, or other advisory service.

 

yours faithfully

 

Shoosmiths

 

 

 

 

 

I forgot to put the date of issue in for the N1 that we received. That was issued on 18th March 2008.

 

Please advise me on the above letter. Should i respond?

 

Thanks

 

Peep

[peep]

Hiya

 

Thanks for the supper fast response.

Is the part 18 letter the one posted above?

 

Also, i have requested a change to jurisdiction simply because i'm too ill to travel all that way and still be well enough to offer evidence if needed. I'm now wondering if thats a valid enough reason?

 

thanks peep x

[ncf355]

Hi Peep

 

Yup, the Part 18 letter is above

 

As a Litigant in person you will easily obtain transfer of proceedings to your local county court, you need to requeest this

[peep]

Thank you - thats reassuring.

 

How would i request the transfer to a particuler court? I have requested it but obviously thats not all i need to do as there is no detail of the prefered court.

 

peep

[Docman]

Shoomitts are an arrogant bunch. Send the part 18 letter (the name come from the section of the court's rules) that PT has suggested as a response , suitably amended.

 

Don't worry about 'jurisdiction'. The Northampton County Court will send the papers to your local county court once you acknowledge receipt of the N1 claim form. You can do this online ASAP if you have not done so already.

 

We can then all look at a drafting a defence to assist further.

[peep]

Thank you so much - thats helped put my mind at rest

 

I'll get the letter sent asap and have already responded to the court, online.

 

My OH is really stressing now and is worried that i'm gonna get this all wrong but its mad alot easier for me to be confident with you guys offering great advice.

 

[pt2537]

Tell you OH to stop stressing

 

Facts are, they have issued a claim against you,

 

now you have two real options other than a time order

 

first option, roll over, play dead and let them win . the consequences are that tehy get a CCJ, possibly a charging order and youre stuffed

 

second option, you defend, you fight them, you win,its game over. now if you lose the same as above in the first option happens so you have little to lose.

 

however, just take a look around the DCA legal success forum and you will see that we win quite a few cases on here, so its not over til the judge says it is

[Docman]

Peep

 

Stop getting stressed out. I spent most of 2006 fending off phone calls from DCAs and credit card companies, most of whom just lied to get money out of me. My problem was that I was responding in writing to them asking very pertinent questions that they couldn't answer (poor things only have one brain cell each). My local Citizens Advice Bureau were full of sympathy but admitted that by responding, I was just prolonging the agony. I could either lie back and think of England or fight back. I found this site a year ago and started to fight back.

 

So far, one bank has given up, and another keeps passing the old balance to various DCAs who back off when I explain the position. Only one tried to take me to court. I followed the advice from this site and the judge threw out their claim. Keep smiling!

[homespun]

hi

shoesmiths are after me to threatening me to make me sell my home that i have worked hard for.

my advice to you is read all you can on this forum it will help you a great deal.

 

alan

[peep]

Thanks for your kind and very suportive words. I'm gonna fight this every step of the way.

 

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my queries.

 

Peep x

[peep]

Hi there,

 

well we have recived the reply from shoosmiths for our part 18 request for further information. It says:

 

We note that you have made a part 18 request for further information toenable you to draft a suitable defence. As you are aware a request should be concise and strictly confined to matters which are reasonably necessary and proportionate to enable the party to understand the case he/she has to meet. The court will not allow the parties to use such a tool as a fishing expedition to obtain documentation which is not relevant to the issues.

In response to your request using the same numerical references.

 

1. We have requested a copy of the credit agreement from our client together with copy notifications.

2. We would respond as follows

a) we do not believe transcripts of telephone conversations to be relevant to the issues and in addition at this stage disproportunate.

b) Please specify as to which manual interventions you refer.

c) We have requested copies of any notice of assignment and/or default notice from our client.

d) We have asked our client to confirm if there was insurance attached to the account. Please confirm if you believed this to be the case, and if so, if an application for a claim on the insurance was made.

e) We have requested copies of your statement of account to show all interest and charges applied.

f) as per e above

g) A copy of a notice for fair use of your data is not necessary in respect of this claim and we therefore shall not be disclosing the same at this stage.

h) A list of third arty agencies to whom our client may have disclosed your personal data is also not necessary in respect of this claim and we therefore shall not be disclosing the same at this stage

i) As detailed at point e above, we have requested this information from our client

 

Due to the nature of our clients buisness we will be able to reply to your request by 14th April 2008. However we aim to have the applicable documentation to you by 4pm on 30 April 2008.

 

We trust this is acceptable to you and shall contact you further in due course.

 

yours faithfully

 

Shoosmiths

 

 

 

Again any advice or help would be really appreciated.

 

peep xxx

[citizenB]

Bumping for you peeps. You sent off the letter that pt2537 drafted out for you.. so I guess it would be best if he were to comment on this.

 

So if you sent the letter out on 22nd March.. do you know when they received it (what is the date on their letter) ? They will be well outside the 14 days you gave them to provide stuff if they cant have the documents to you until 14th and 30th April ?

[peep]

Just bumping this thread and hoping someone will know.

 

thanks

 

Peep

[1stlifeline]

Watching this with interest a I have sent off the same request for information letter off to Shoosmiths so can probaably expect the same response back from them

[Docman]

As I said before, a very arrogant bunch. I am very tempted to advise not only putting in a defence but also applying to have their claim struck out on the grounds that they do not have the documentary evidence to hand to prove their claim. I believe that they should attach a copy of any agreement that forms the basis of a claim to the POC unless the claim is brought through electronic means. This can be confusing if the claim is in Northampton, where Shooos are based.

I suggest you write back today stating that you will be submitting a defence with leave to amend if they produce further documentation but in view of their refusal to supply documentation that you consider is required, then you may [a little but very important word] ask the court to strike out their clients claim and ask for costs against them for commencing an action without documentation to prove their claim.

[peep]

Thanks Docman,

 

Are there any links on the site as to what a defence letter should look like. I have tried to find something but have not been ble to.

I have been through the process before in 2006 with the Natwest on these accounts and won £6000 back, unfortunatly since then my illness means i can not recall the process and my searching and understanding of the proceedure has been fruitless.

Could you please explain the proceedure calander for me so i can understand what needs to be done and when, or a link so i can look there.

I know i'm being a pain as the site, i know will hold everything i need but its just beyond me at the moment.

 

I hope you can help

 

peep