RBS taken me to court over disputed debt

[chetan]

I will start with the basic of the case sorry this is bit long but everything is based on this so,

I recieved a letter in march 2008 from a solicitor Shoesmiths on behalf of RBS want to sue me for £ 12483.43 for 2 joint accounts and 1 my personal account. Both the joint accounts were opened by my self and my husband in Oct 1997 with RBS.

 

My husband and I actually lived seperately since july 2006 and we requested the bank to remove me from both the accounts (they were in O/D 0f about £5058.53 at the time) from immediate effect and change the accounts to his name and we muatually agreed that he would pay the O/D. I carried on recieving statements under joint name still and we requested again in september 2006 (5077.18 O/D) to change the name & address and asked the RBS to open a seperate account for me which they did open in Sep 2006. I still carried on recieveing statement and i spoke to my husband again and visited the bank on feb 2007 (6428.14 O/D) and requested again third time.

To my relief the statements stopped coming and recieved the claim from RBS solictor for £ 12483.43

My husband moved on from the address which RBS had on their system and now they are chasing me for.

I am defending my case until now and now very close to the trial.

The defence is on th efollwing grounds:

 

1. The bank had forms to change the names and address Liability of mine should finish on end july 06 otherwise Sep 06 ( Joint Liability) worst case is Feb 07 according to their form but I think my husband kept forms of the change in name & address.

2. what bank has done is in A/c 1 & 2 they joint accounts they did not remove my name on records and change those account to my husbands address and which he did not pay and moved on.

3. I might lose this case under joint liability

 

I have 2 quetsion if someone can help

1. Can I minimise the liability untill July 2006

2. Can I request the court to escalate the excess charges claim against the bank as the excess charges is in the region of £ 4000 in last 6 years as account was heavily used by my husband or i have to start a new claim.

originally I did not mention to court about the charges as I only seen when I recieved the witness statement from bank and checked that the charges are about that much, now i am thinking to do the claim.

[BankFodder]

As far as I understand your explanation, your bank failed to carry out your instructions to change the status of your bank accounts.

 

If this is correct that you can only be held jointly liable for the accounts until the date the bank received the instruction. After that, as long as the accounts were not used jointly at all I think that the party who was intended to be the owner of the account should be held liable.

 

Secondly, on the chrges issue. yes you can claim all of your charges back ind in fact you should be able to claim them back to 1995.

 

However, any charges incurred on the joint account while used jointly would belog to the both of you.

 

I hope that your calculations of the charges owed to you have taken into account the interest which they have charged you on the charges and on your overdraft. Add to that at least 8% statutory interest, you might easily find that they owe you far more than £4000 in charges.

 

Has the court claim been issued yet? If it has then don't worry about it. you would need to defend and then counterclaim on the issue of charges.

That will bring RBS's little rampage shuddering to a halt.

 

Your defence would be based on the charges element in their claim and also on the fact that they were in breach of contract and had failed to carry out your instruction correctly and that therefore a portion of the debt has nothing to do with you.

 

Presumably you do have evidence that you instructed them on a particular date.

 

I think that you need to make a thorough assessment of the value of the charges plus interest levied that they actually owe you with and without the statutory 8%.

Then you will have a good idea of where you are.

[chetan]

I have just totalled the charges as follows:

1. The charges are for the returned items as £38 every time from the Feb 2007 going backwards.

2. I have not included any interset on charges

3. I have not included the O/D Interest

4. £ 4000 is purely just charges for the items returned ( can these fall into excess charges)

 

Also

The claim form has been issued to me and i am defending that presently.

 

Can you help me to start this claim or counterclaim for excess charges against them step by step please if possible and your time will be appriciated

Edited November 5, 2009 by chetan
Pressedenter button by mistake

[BankFodder]

Right, well you are not helping yourself at all.

 

Every charge which you occurred while in overdraft has formed part of your overdraft and you have paid interest on it. If the charge is unlawful, then the interest on it is unlawful and you want that back too. This is the case whether the overdraft is authoised or unauthorised.

If you pay interest on bank charges then you are paying interest on your own money!! Geddit?

 

How far back does your account history go? You can claim all the way back to 1995.

 

You will need a calculator and a highlighter to work it all out. It will be complicated but it will be well worth it.

 

Come back here when you are finished

[chetan]

I have already put defence and have to file a pre trial check list can I put amended defence or change my defence.

Before I was only trying to defend and minimise the loss but now after you membership i feel I can claim

So, do u know if I could amend my defence with pre trial checklist?

 

I am going to total my charges now.

[BankFodder]

I think that you need to amend your defence and put in a countercalim. By the sounds of it you need to do it quickly.

 

By a stroke of good fortune I have recently put this http://www.consumerforums.com/resources/templates-library/51-guidance-notes/619-amending-your-pleadings up in our library.

 

When is the hearing date?

 

Do you have a scanner? If not, then frankly, get one. You can get a very decent one for about £50. Canon seem to be very good.

I think that you need to scan the claim, your defence and any court order on to this site.

Blank out any identifiers - names ref nos court names dates etc - but don't worry about them seeing it. It makes no difference. If you manage to deal with this then it will be because you deal with it competently - not because you pull a fast one on them.

 

Keep totalling your charges but start the amendment process immediately.

[BankFodder]

This looks like a decent scanner

Canon LiDE100 Flatbed scanner - Buy cheap Canon scanners at PC World.

[chetan]

hi Bankfodder

Thanks for the feedback I have a scanner and will scan & post the documents

Now I worked on 1st account and totalled up the charges untill the end as bank is persuing me as joint liability for the total comes to in 4 figures as

1st penality charged: £8975.72

2nd 8% on penalities: £2384.34

3rd interest on penalties: £1578.39

4th 8% on interest on penalties: £ 366.63

Totalling to massive: £ 13305.08

There are two things though 2 entries are

* 1st one taken out of our account £4229.82 and in ref it says managers suspense

* 2nd they paid £190 from the account and says solicitors fee

Although I have included both in the calculation above.

 

Tell me what should i do once i finished with other two accounts as well as this was the main account.

[BankFodder]

This is a very large amount so we need to be sure.

You originally expected that your charges were about £4k. Now you say that they are £8975. Why the discrepancy?

 

The interest on penalties - £1578. This is money which you have actually paid by way of interest on your overdraft to the extent that the overdraft was comprised of penalties? You are simply applying an interest calculation? You can see on each statement that they have taken a sum out in interest which relates to your charges and this is the total over the years?

 

You understand, don't you that the only interest calculation you can make is the 8%. This is the only money which you can claim which they haven't actually taken from you.

 

The rest must ne money which they have actually taken from you - charges and the interest which they have taken on those charges.

 

If there is anything you don't understand then discuss it here.

How many years are you going back?

[BankFodder]

Have you taken out any loans?

[chetan]

hi

i used the calculator from the forum is file called"complex-bank-charges-calc)

initially the figure I calculated one day on calculator untill 05/02/07 when I went to bank to remove me from the joint liability but bank is still trying to persue me under joint liable.

other 2 big figures of 4229 & 190 is from 05/02/07 onward untill 06/06/2008 which I included and thought if banks are sueing me for untill 06/06/2008 so, i could technically claim all that.

what do you say.

the four figures i have taken from the 3rd worksheet of the calculator mentioned earlier.

hope this is ok?

[chetan]

my husband took a loan in 2002/2003 and then rearranged with another loan in 2005 but the loan is under his name only.

[chetan]

The bank sent me statements from 11/05/2001 till 06/06/2008

Also I noticed while working today they charged me default notice fee on 3 occasions is it within the law?

[chetan]

1st figure includes the folowings:

a) Every months Charges says (CHG to 11JAN)etc

b) unpaid cheques charges such as £ 30 then gone to £38

c) any refund of above charges

d) referral fee as and when they applied

e) the suspense entry

and last one solicitor fee which i mentioned in earlier posts

hope this is correct.

[BankFodder]

So you are claiming back to 2001.

Do you expect that youhave charges beyond then?

 

Are any of the loans in joint names?

 

You still haven't referred to the large dscrepancy btween your expected figure and the figure you are now coming up with

[chetan]

Hi

No loans in joint names

Also I have referred discrepancy issue in post #11

The account was opened in 1997 but i only have statements from 2001 being part of the case

Edited November 6, 2009 by chetan
did not complete

[BankFodder]

As long as you are completely satisfied that you have correctly calculated the charges which they have taken from you and that you can demonstrate the figures and that you can present them in court in a convincing way.

 

Add the deafult fees too.

No loans in your name then?

 

Get your statements back to 1997 and add the charges contained in those statements too.

 

When did you last do an SAR? and how did you word it? Is it possible to say that RBS did not comply? or will you have to send another one?

[BankFodder]

How far does your personal account go? You should get all info back to 1995 on that and add those charges too.

 

It sounds to me as if you have enough here to rebut their claim completely and get some change.

 

What is this solicitor's fee that you refer to?

 

I think that we need to see the scanned documents please

[chetan]

£ 190 taken from my 1 account at the moment

[chetan]

i am going to scan the docs and file tommorrow

[BankFodder]

Has a hearing date been set?

Also at one point in this thread you say that you are filing a defence presently and then later you say that you have filed one.

What is the situation?

 

You will have to amend your defence and put in a counterclaim.

 

This is something which I put last week and tell you how to go about it.

http://www.consumerforums.com/resources/templates-library/51-guidance-notes/619-amending-your-pleadings

 

But we need to prepare the amended documents first.

I can imagine that the RBS solicitors won't be sporting enough to agree to your amendments but you should go through the hoops anyway. These poeple are droids and they never seem to realise that by objecting to such stuff as basic amendments by litigants in person, they gain no possible advantage and only show themselves up in the mind of the judge.

Mind you, you never know.

[BankFodder]

£ 190 taken from my 1 account at the moment

Sorry, what does this refer to?

[BankFodder]

It looks to me that you will defend:-

a) on the issue of whether you are liable for the entire amount because they failed to carry out your instruction to change the account. You will have to come up with the figure which you say is wholly your husband's responsibility. That will be whatever overdraft was incurred on the accounts from the moment that the instruction was given and ignored.

b) that in any event the overdraft is comprised of bank charges which are excessive and therefore unlawful under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regs 1999.

 

Then you will go on to counterclaim on the issue of charges.

 

a)You will be seeking the return of all charges plus related interest plus 8% incurred in all of the accounts until the time the instruction was given to sever the ownership of the accounts.

 

b) breach of the account contract in that they failed to follow your reasonable instructions as to the management of the accounts.

 

c) breach of the Data Protection Act by theri failure fully to comply with your s.7 SAR ( assuming that this issue has not been resolved).

 

 

If you figures are correct then they may owe you money.

 

Have you been defaulted in respect of this alleged indebtedness?

 

If you have and your figures are correct that the sum in respect of which you have been defaulted is comprised wholly of charges then you may as well also ask the court for an order to clean up your credit file. By the time this all gets to court the OFT test case will have been decided and the way will be clear for these kinds of applications to made to the courts and for the courts to grant them pretty readily.

 

If you have been defaulted in the circumstances I have described, then have you suffered any loss or distress as a result? If you have then you can claim a figure for this as well.

 

Finally if you would like things to get really sporty, yu could consider asking the court to award you restitutionary damages. Read about these on the site.

[BankFodder]

I hope that you are spending your time reading up on all the issues on this site.

It is very important that you understand what you are doing and that you make your own decisions.

[chetan]

yesterday we were taking about filing amended defence but actual defence was filed last year and we were going backward and forward and was holding them since.

so, actual defence has been filed and I think Best will be I scan all documents and then discuss further possibly tommorrow now.