Why is no one claiming the contractual rate of interest???

[Seminole]

Are there any accountants here?

 

What would actually happen if a bank were to admit its charges were unlawful?

 

What would actually happen if a precedent-setting court were to rule the charges unlawful?

 

From the little I know about company accounting, it seems to me that the bank, or all banks in the case of a court judgement, would have to include the bank's liability in their financial results statements. My understanding is the directors of the bank cannot hide this or ignore it; they are legally obliged to inform shareholders of anything which may substantially affect the value of the company,

 

Tim

 

You are broadly correct in your analysis. A general requirement to refund current and past charges to all customers would provoke accounting pandemonium. I am actually quite surprised that there hasn't been some comment on these lines in the financial press.

 

They key issue here is to get the Government to take the issue seriously. In my view unlawful bank charges are a far worse scandal than endowment or pension mis-selling. However, the powers that be seem to have the attitude that if they don't talk about the issue then it will go away. The banks' approach seems to be that if they quietly settle every claim without admitting liability and without it getting to court then they don't need to be concerned about their profits. The regulators in turn don't seem to be asking the questions they ought to be asking of the banks.

 

All this is why it is so important to encourage everyont to recleim their charges and why we need to campaign and lobby at the political level for this issue to be treated seriously. To do this we need to campaign effectively and be voical. It's also why a big turnout for the protest on 1 December is so important.

[Seminole]

I am claiming £2500 from NatWest and have been offered £1500.

 

I now intend to reject the offer and issue a claim online. I really cannot be fagged to work out the interest item by item on 100-odd charges over 6 years, so is it OK to say:-

 

1/ the average amount of my money NatWest had over the six years was half of the total £2500 I'm claiming;

2/ the average time they had it for was half of those six years (i.e. they had some of it for 6 years and some of it they've only just taken);

3/ the interest rate they charged was 18% most of the time

 

...and therefore I now claim 3 years' interest (= the average time they've had the money) on £1250 (the average amount they have had) compounded at 18%, i.e. another £804 (approx)?

 

Is an approximate calculation good enough for a SCC claim? As I see it they have had £3,300 off me if I include interest on that basis, so their £1500 offer is less than half what I have lost.

 

Also, does anyone have a rejection template? Maybe I am being a div, but I can't find the templates library anywhere.

 

TiA.

 

There is nothing to stop you making a claim on this basis but I really wouldn't recommend it, particularly if you are planning to use contractual interest. The claim should be supported by a reasonably accurate calculation and the spreadsheet templates have been written to make this as easy as possible. Claiming charges back is a serious undertaking and making a court claim is even more serious. You need to be prepared to attend court and explain your methodology to a district judge. I don't think the approach you are suggesting would impress him/her.

[Seminole]

Not sure I understand this debate.

 

Contractual interest does not count towards the value of the claim for track allocation purposes. If the charges were say £4,000 and the contractual interest were £3,000, the case would not be allocated to another track on the basis of its total value. The charges themselves would have to exceed £5,000 before this would be a real risk.

 

Contractial interest does count towards the calculation of the court fee so in the above example the claim for these purposes would be £7,000.

 

Bear in mind that none of this is set in tablets of stone and the judge could decide to do something outside the norm.

[Seminole]

This is contrary to the information I have had from the County Court where I submitted my claim against abbey. The CC told me that for both determination of the fee and allocation to track contractual interest was included.

 

The logic is that the contractual interest is a part of your claim and in theory is simply a matter for judgement of whether your claim is right or not.

 

Sec 69 interest on the other hand is not part of your claim, you are asking the court to determine and award interest.

 

Its clear for the purposes of valuing the claim that interest is included (see CPR 46.3.a) where the courts is determining the allocation of costs.

 

I have struggled to find a different view in the CPR where it talks about allocation or the value of a claim.

 

This issue has come up a number of times, if anyone has a definitive source then please ost it to put us all out of our misery.

 

Glenn

 

The Patricia Pearl book clearly states that interest is not included when considering the value of a claim for track allocation purposes. This site's initial view was that interest should be included but PP is a district judge with years of experience. Her views on this subject were expressed very explicitly in the book. That's good enough for me.

 

If you have a moment it would be helpful if you could speak to the court again and ask them for the basis on which they asserted that interest was included.

[Seminole]

The little experience I have had so far with the Courts has shown me that the Clerks often seem to be making no more than badly-educated guesses, but I think Glenn's contacts are better quality than mine !!

If I could quote a District Judge on these matters, then I would rather do that than quote a clerk. I'm going to order PP's book ASAP. However, I live in Scotland, but am using the English SCC's in every claim so far. Presumably, the "Not for use in Scotland" disclaimer simply means "Not for use in Scottish Courts" ?? Can anyone confirm ?

 

Yes.

 

Why were you asking about my ISP by the way?

[Seminole]

Following an off-topic discussion with Mindzai earlier about ISP's, you mentioned AOL going downhill following TalkTalk buyout. As you seemed clued-up, It seemed worth asking you who you use, as it is probably bound to be better than AOL or Tiscali !!

 

Nothing sinister !!8-)

 

I use Demon. Little bit wary when I signed up with them last year but have to say that they've been fine. Bit slow to upgrade to an 8MB service for existing users but I don't mind that too much. £20 a month including VAT for 2MB.