Mindzai & Lucid vs Lloyds TSB ***WON UNCONDITIONALLY WITH CONTRACTUAL INTEREST***

[GaryH]

Crossed posts with Els then, but yep, totally agree. You could tell the court that the amounts only cleared late tonight, so you did'nt wan't to inconveniance the court any further by not turning up without explaination. Come to think of it, its probably to late to get a letter in by now anyway.

[lucid]

Thank you Elsinore and Gary! Both offering excellent advice as usual.

 

I knew I was being a bit too ambitious in my ideas. I think I must have been getting confused - for some reason I was thinking that because we hadn't agreed with the bank that it was the end of the claim that we might have a chance of reclaiming all costs involved second time around. I know you're right Gary that you can't reclaim such costs in Small Claims but they did pay us our small amounts in letter writing costs that we did claim - very insignificant amount though so I'd imagine that's why.

 

I've just discussed the advice from both of you with Mindzai and we're going to go with writing a letter and hand delivering it to the court first thing tomorrow. We will include the settled cases list we have and will come up with a list of costs involved for each claim. It's certainly worth a try - even if it doesn't get us anywhere. I'm sure Mindzai will come up with a very well written letter to cover it.

 

Thanks again. Lucid

 

EDIT: I've just spotted your edit Gary. Do you think it would be better to turn up to the court and meet the Judge to discuss it? We were thinking it might be better in letter form that they will get first thing so that the Judge doesn't have to attend a concluded case - if you see what I mean? Concluded as in they've paid in full and given us everything we claimed for.

[MARTIN3030]

Nice work.

Thread title changed as requested.

[photoman]

Just wanted to add my

 

CONGRATULATIONS!

 

 

.........but also my agreement with the sentiments you have brought up regards consideration of taking this matter further.

I'm inclined to agree with the view of still turning up tommorow.

Firstly to show how your own respect of the courts own time and efforts is in such opposite contrast to the Banks (and not just lloyds).

Secondly, this may give you an in person insight into the Courts attitude, and will further demonstrate the time and efforts you have gone to, (and be on record).

All of which could be useful should you take this further.

[GaryH]

EDIT: I've just spotted your edit Gary. Do you think it would be better to turn up to the court and meet the Judge to discuss it? We were thinking it might be better in letter form that they will get first thing so that the Judge doesn't have to attend a concluded case - if you see what I mean? Concluded as in they've paid in full and given us everything we claimed for.

 

Up to you really. Depends how well you think you'll be able to put accross what you want to say - I.e how comfortable you'd be in court. Mind you, its only a couple of people sat around a table in a small room, so its hardly anything to worry about.

 

Personally, I think either option is just as valid. If you do go, just say that it was too late to properly cancel the hearing, so you've attended out of courtesy to inform the court that the claim has been settled. Then bring up the subject of the Defendant giving you the run around for 6 months before folding the night before!

[tbell]

Right everyone, I was in the middle of typing a reply to thank you all once again and to update on what the court said to Mindzai. Then it occurred to me that I should check the account balances and they have paid the last amounts into each account - it's cleared instantly. It's finally over.

 

We are going to be straight down to Lloyds tomorrow morning to close all of the accounts and then we will finally be rid of them - well almost, we've then got to start again to pursue the money they took after we'd filed the claims. I'll be back to that point in a minute.

 

When Mindzai phoned the court this afternoon he was advised by the woman to get a letter to them by tomorrow and to request an adjournment (as Gary suggested above). She said that his would give us an extra couple of weeks to receive the money into our accounts - but it looks as though we won't be needing to use that approach now. So I guess we phone the court first thing and let them know it's completely over. I do like your suggestion of going for costs on the ground of unreasonable behaviour (on their part) Gary but I think we will have to leave it as is. We've got all the money we asked for now so it seems unnecessary to turn up to court. But this leads swiftly on to our second claims .......

 

Since filing the claims we had one charge come out of one of the accounts and all of them have had overdraft interest coming out monthly. Our accounts were all overdrawn when we started with our prelim because we refused to provide money for them to take charges out which obviously means that our accounts have gone more and more overdrawn since August. We are planning to lump all three accounts together and reclaim all of the overdraft interest we are entitled to - which is probably the majority of it. They are probably not going to like this as there is only one overdraft excess fee that we will be claiming but I don't see why should we lose out on any money - even if it is the more risky overdraft interest.

 

Now I don't know how risky this is or if it's an absolutely ridiculous idea but we haven't actually signed anything or verbally agreed to any conditions tied to the three claims - we haven't even agreed that this is a full and final settlement. Is it possible that we can total up costs incurred since we filed the original claims and add them on to the new one? For example we spent almost £20 on a box of A4 paper and used almost all of it in preparing our bundles, then we spent just as much on sending the bundles to SC&M. We have had to write and send them a lot of letters - all recorded delivery since we filed the claim as we had the major Collections Dept. trauma. It probably would seem like lots of small amounts of money but obviously it all adds up. We have also taken two holiday days from our jobs today and tomorrow so that we could prepare for the hearing and obviously attend it and now it turns out that was completely unnecessary.

 

I don't know if I've got completely the wrong idea but we haven't agreed that we won't pursue anything else which relates to the claims they've just settled - so can we now go back to claim the costs? If not or it's too risky then we're happy with that, but I think it's worth asking.

 

Now I'm off to work out how much money we're actually left with that we're goignt o be able to withdraw tomorrow when we close our accounts. It won't be much as we had an overdraft in the joint account as well and all of them wer overdrawn but we're now completely out of debt with Lloyds. I think the majority of this is going to my younger sister who we owe a lot of money too. She really helped us out when we were in a bad way with money - especially providing us money to cover huge charegs that were going to come out. It'll be good to be able to return a lump sum to her though.

 

I'm going to make a timeline post in this thread that covers everything and then link it in my signature - just as an easy reference point for anybody interested.

 

We can finally celebrate. Lucid

 

 

 

Well done

[lucid]

Up to you really. Depends how well you think you'll be able to put accross what you want to say - I.e how comfortable you'd be in court. Mind you, its only a couple of people sat around a table in a small room, so its hardly anything to worry about.

 

Personally, I think either option is just as valid. If you do go, just say that it was too late to properly cancel the hearing, so you've attended out of courtesy to inform the court that the claim has been settled. Then bring up the subject of the Defendant giving you the run around for 6 months before folding the night before!

 

Thanks Gary ...... again. And thank you Photoman for your opinion on the matter.

 

We've made the decision that we are going to hand deliver a letter first thing tomorrow to cancel the hearing but include a list of costs and cover in the letter the unreasonable behaviour that they have exhibited. I think it's more appropriate for us to do it this way and I think we'd come across better in writing - well I will, Mindzai would be fine. I know it's fairly relaxed in the small claims but I think I'd rather give the court one less hearing to worry about - especially as they have settled the claim in full and it's now just a question of costs. Plus we can hand deliver the letter, then move straight to the bank to close our accounts and that can be everything done. I think a celebratory meal somewhere is much in need! It will feel so good to walk out of that bank and know we never have to deal with them again.

 

Lucid

[mcuth]

Wooo-hooo, congratulations - so glad you managed to get that outstanding bit sorted

 

I like Gary's idea of costs because of unreasonable behaviour - keep us updated on how the rest of it goes!

 

Cheers

 

Michael

[MARTIN3030]

Yes I was in the same position with Telewest.They bounced 2 cheques as settlement and the court date was only 3 days away.They panicked as I told them I was looking forward to going to court.

2 Days before the hearing they said they were going to do a bank transfere.I t still was not there the day before.

The court day finally arrived.......I checked my bank account online at 11.00am the money was there.

The legal team from Telewest told me they had done it but I said I could not check as I was on the motorway,

With the hearing set for 2 hours away they called my mobile 3 further times asking me to tell them they had settled.

I too had a prepared letter for court and took it down....but then changed my mind and decided instead I wanted the chance to go in and tell the Judge exactly how it was.

The re was only him in the room and I had my day at last.

The feeling that it gives you to do that is worth all the waiting.

I would not have missed it for anything......and would say to anyone else in the same position...if you CAN get there then do so.....the Judge will be interested in what you have to say and thats much better than giving a letter in.

 

 

incidentaly anyone who is interested in claiming late charges or non-dd admin fees from them my thread is here....http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/telecoms-mobile-fixed-broadband/9306-telewest-10-00-late.html

[nevos]

Fantastic and well done both of you!!

[fitsw6]

*WON*

 

What an inspiring word to the rest of us

[lucid]

We have typed up the following letter to hand deliver tomorrow - using one of GaryH's templates as a guide:

 

1ST DRAFT WITH AN INCORRECT CITATION IT

We wish to inform the court that the claims as detailed above, in which we are the Claimants have now been settled.

 

Regarding Claim No. 6CI02343 the Defendant paid the full amount claimed, namely £2019.64, by way of a credit to our bank account on the evening of 6th February.

 

Regarding Claim No. 6CI02344 the Defendant paid the full amount claimed, namely £595.65, by way of a credit to Mr Mindzai's bank account on the evening of 6th February.

 

Regarding Claim No. 6CI02345 the Defendant paid the full amount claimed, namely £749.62, by way of a credit to Miss Lucid’s bank account on the evening of 6th February.

 

As these amounts have been repaid, no further action is necessary. However, we believe that the Defendant has behaved unreasonably in their approach to defending this claim, not least because we believe the Defendant had no intention of ever defending this claim. We enclose a copy of a General Form of Judgement or Order made by a District Judge in Lincoln for the court’s consideration, for a case in which Lloyds TSB Bank PLC was the Defendant. We also enclose a list of all cases of which we are aware in which Lloyds TSB Bank PLC are the Defendant. Every one of these cases was settled in full before a hearing. Further, the Defendant failed to file any documents to the court, breaching the orders made by District Judge Levinson on 11th October and 23rd October.

 

The Defendant’s unreasonable approach has directly incurred us costs as outlined below and in an approximate attached list of costs, and therefore we respectfully request that the Court consider awarding these costs, or such costs as it deems appropriate, as outlined in the Civil Procedure Rules 27.14(2)(d).

 

Further, both Claimants had to take leave from work for two days in order to prepare for and attend the hearing. We respectfully request that the Court consider awarding the loss of earnings in the sum of £96 for Mr Mindzai and £58 for Miss Lucid, or such amount as it sees fit, as per the Civil Procedure Rules 27.14(2)(e).

 

Please accept our sincere apologies for the waste of the court’s valuable time spent processing and managing this claim. We do wish to inform the court however, that the decision to enter into this litigation was not taken lightly, and that ample opportunity was given to the Defendant to resolve this matter by way of negotiation before proceeding with this claim. Regretfully, all attempts at meaningful dialogue were either rebutted or ignored.

 

A copy of this letter has been sent to the Defendant.

The list of costs we have totalled up is actually quite scary - but it is an underestimation as well:

 

1ST DRAFT

Total Approximate Costs Incurred in Pursuing the Claims

 

1. 14 letters sent by 1st Class recorded delivery at £2 each to cover postage and stationary is £28

 

2. The total cost of preparing the document bundles for each claim in triplicate is £50.

- paper cost of £20 (1 box of 5 reams)

- printer ink cost of £10

- special delivery postage and packaging cost of £20

 

3. Time spent in preparing letters, document bundles and case notes is at least 20 hours. Total at £9.25 per hour is £185.

 

4. Loss of earnings in the total sum of £154.

- Mr Mindzai lost £96

- Miss Lucid lost £58

 

 

TOTAL COSTS: £417

That is a very high amount but we have definitely spent more time and money than listed. I'm not sure what the Judge will think of this and if they decide we're not entitled to anything then that's absolutely fine, but it's certainly worth going for - especially when you can see it out in front of you like that.

 

Lucid

[museumsteve]

On the subject of Contractural Interest, if a claim was submitted and has taken months going through the motions (like it does) is it feasible to charge the Contractural Interest rate from date of claim bearng in mind most claims will only have been made originally using the 8% rate? I realise you cannot suddenly change the interest submitted in the claim but as you can charge interest up until the time the claim is paid can you charge the higher rate (if you see what I mean).

[lucid]

Hi,

 

Yes I see what you mean but unfortunately no, you can't change the itnerest rate at all once you've filed the claim. If you've asked for a daily rate of 8% interest to accrue then you have to stick with that.

 

Lucid

[museumsteve]

Doh..worth a thought

Thanks for the prompt reply and many congratulations

[chezt]

We have typed up the following letter to hand deliver tomorrow - using one of GaryH's templates as a guide:

 

The list of costs we have totalled up is actually quite scary - but it is an underestimation as well:

 

That is a very high amount but we have definitely spent more time and money than listed. I'm not sure what the Judge will think of this and if they decide we're not entitled to anything then that's absolutely fine, but it's certainly worth going for - especially when you can see it out in front of you like that.

 

Lucid

 

Excellent! it sure does add up ... I'm stunned at the amount of paper used ... a whole box!!! Those poor trees! :o

[GaryH]

Yep, good job. The only thing I would say is to expressly cite CPR 27.14(2)(g), plus include as much as you can in the way of receipts, breakdowns of costs, etc. I think the judge may be more likely to award costs if they are well particularised and accounted for.

 

Also, congratulations again. I can almost sense your relief at finally being rid of them - feels good, don't it! I think this thread goes down as a good example of how to claim contractual interest properly - well done to both of you, this is textbook stuff.

[lucid]

Thanks for the feedback Gary. Yes I was actually going to provide a more detailed list - like I did for the letter costs we included in our claims where I listed who each letter was addressed to, the date it was sent and the tracking reference. But then unfortunately tiredness kicked in late last night and I decided to do it in the above way. But you're right, looking at it the Judge is probably going to think it's just a set of random figures and not be inclined to award anything at all. One slight problem is that we don't have the receipts for the paper - although it's possible it's buried under the mountains of paperwork we still have around as a result of these claims - as at the time we didn't think we were entitled to reclaim such costs. If I can't find it I can refer to the exact paper we got and the shop we bought it from so I guess that will have to do. If the Judge doesn't award it that's fair enough but I'll put all references in that I can.

 

I'll finish my tea and then redo the costs and we'll include the citation in the letter. As I think this list of costs is going to take a fair while to complete I'll give the court a ring when they open at 9am as a courtesy call, but let them know that I've got a letter I'm going to hand deliver to confirm cancel the court hearing.

 

Damn - I didn't need to get up at 6am on my day off after all. Oh well nevermind.

 

Lucid

[Neil Birch]

If you log onto faxtastic faxtastic! Fax to email e-mail service. Free 0871 numbers and low-cost 0870 and 0207. they have a brilliant service and its free

they give you your own personal fax no and convert it for FREE to email

you have to use the account once in the first week as the only condition , they make there money from the caller who is dialling on 0871 no [its 10p per minute] so its not a big deal and its great to have the flexibility especially if you have a blackberry

Regards Neil

[mcuth]

Great letter - isn't it shocking how much the costs come to though?

 

(BTW, in item #4 of your costs calcs, you left your surnames in....)

 

Cheers

 

Michael

[lucid]

Neil - thanks for that. We actually got our fax sorted out in the end but it's good to know for future reference.

 

Mcuth - thanks for pointing that out. As I said I was very tired last night. Not that it really matters now but have edited it anyway.

 

I have a feeling working out a proper breakdown of costs is going to possibly make it more.

 

Lucid

[DSM]

At last! Well done and congrats

[lucid]

This morning I hand delivered the following corrected versions of the letter and schedule of costs:

 

We wish to inform the court that the claims as detailed above, in which we are the Claimants have now been settled.

 

Regarding Claim No. 6CI02343 the Defendant paid the full amount claimed, namely £2019.64, by way of a credit to our bank account on the evening of 6th February.

 

Regarding Claim No. 6CI02344 the Defendant paid the full amount claimed, namely £595.65, by way of a credit to Mr Mindzai’s bank account on the evening of 6th February.

 

Regarding Claim No. 6CI02345 the Defendant paid the full amount claimed, namely £749.62, by way of a credit to Miss Lucid’s bank account on the evening of 6th February.

 

As these amounts have been repaid, no further action is necessary, and the Claimants would like to inform the court that the hearings for each scheduled for 7th February at 2pm are no longer necessary.

 

However, we believe that the Defendant has behaved unreasonably in their approach to defending this claim, not least because we believe the Defendant had no intention of ever defending this claim at a hearing. We enclose a copy of a General Form of Judgement or Order made by a District Judge in Lincoln for the court’s consideration, for a case in which Lloyds TSB Bank PLC was the Defendant. We also enclose a list of all cases of which we are aware in which Lloyds TSB Bank PLC was the Defendant. Every one of these cases was settled in full before a hearing despite a defence being entered by the Defendant.

 

Further, in relation to our claims, the Defendant failed to file any documents to the court, breaching the orders made by District Judge Levinson on 11th October and 23rd October. Again this is typical of the Defendant’s approach in other cases of which we are aware.

 

The Defendant’s unreasonable approach in defending a claim it always intended to settle has directly incurred us unnecessary costs as outlined in the attached list of costs, and therefore we respectfully request that the Court consider awarding these costs, or such costs as it deems appropriate, as outlined in the Civil Procedure Rules 27.14(2)(e) and 27.14(2)(g):

 

 

(2) The court may not order a party to pay a sum to another party in respect of that

other party's costs, fees and expenses, including those relating to an appeal, except –

 

(e) a sum not exceeding the amount specified in the relevant practice direction for any loss of earnings or loss of leave by a party or witness due to attending a hearing or to

staying away from home for the purposes of attending a hearing;

 

(g) such further costs as the court may assess by the summary procedure and order to be

paid by a party who has behaved unreasonably.

 

 

Please accept our sincere apologies for the waste of the court’s valuable time spent processing and managing this claim. We do wish to inform the court however, that the decision to enter into this litigation was not taken lightly, and that ample opportunity was given to the Defendant to resolve this matter by way of negotiation before proceeding with this claim. Regretfully, all attempts at meaningful dialogue were either rebutted or ignored.

 

A copy of this letter has been sent to the Defendant.

Total Costs Incurred in Pursuing the Claims

 

1. Schedule of letters written and posted since filing each claim

16 letters have been written in total since filing the claim – all in relation to the claims. Each letter has been accounted for and was sent via Royal Mail First Class Recorded Delivery. The Claimants request a repayment of £2 per letter to recover postage costs, stationary and travel to the Post Office.

 

A list of each letter follows which has the date of the letter, the reason behind the letter, who it was addressed to followed by the recorded delivery tracking reference.

 

TOTAL: £32

 

2. Document bundles

The Claimants posted one document bundle for each claim to Sechiari, Clark & Mitchell on 22nd January. The three bundles were posted in a package together and the Claimants used Royal Mail Special Delivery. Due to the package weighing over 3kg the cost of postage was £18.50. The claimants have enclosed a copy of the receipt and a copy of the postage ticket.

The Claimants would also like to recover an additional £1.50 to recover packaging costs.

TOTAL: £20

 

3. Paper and printing costs

The Claimants estimate that throughout the whole claim they have used a total of 2000 sheets of paper – the majority of this from producing three duplicate bundles for each of the three claims. The Claimants used their own multifunction printer at home for all printing and photocopying and feel that a reasonable cost to cover the toner and running of the printer would be 1p per sheet of paper printed.

 

TOTAL: £20

 

The Claimants would also like to recover the costs of purchasing the paper for the printing involved. The paper used was purchased from PC World and is ‘PC Line A4 80gsm Multifunction Paper (333686)’ and approximately 4 reams have been used in total. Each ream costs £3.99.

 

TOTAL: £15.96

 

4. Preparation time

The Claimants estimate that they have spent a minimum of 20 hours between them in preparing letters, document bundles and case notes. They respectfully request an award of £9.25 per hour for their time spent.

TOTAL: £185

 

5. Loss of earnings

 

The Claimants had to take leave from work for two days in order to prepare for and attend the hearing. We respectfully request that the Court consider awarding the loss of earnings in the sum of £96 for Mr Mindzai and £58 for Miss Lucid, or such amount as it sees fit, as per the Civil Procedure Rules 27.14(2)(e).

 

- Mr Mindzai earns approximately £48 per 7.5 hour workday after deducting income tax and national insurance.

- Miss Lucid earns approximately £29 per 4 hour workday after deducting income tax and national insurance.

 

TOTAL: £154

 

__________________

TOTAL COSTS INCURRED: £426.96

So we shall have to wait and see what the court think of that, I suppose it's very unlikely that they will award the costs but we'll see.

 

So after the letter was hand delivered we proceeded to Lloyds to clsoe our accounts, which took over half an hour. A lot of form filling for the member of staff on the front desk - but it is now done and we will never have to go in there again. We then took all of our money to the Post Office to pay into our A&L accounts. The plan is to repay Mindzai's mum the total court costs as she lent us the money - so that's £250 gone, then my dad lent us the £100 AQ fee so that's a further £100 gone, and with the final amount left over we're going to transfer it to my sister's account as we owe her a lot of money and will never have a lump sum like this again - so that's about £750. But we did keep £20 on us to go and get a celebration lunch which was really nice.

 

Although we're not going to see any of this money it's so good to get out of debt with Lloyds as well as being able to pay back other debts. We're going to make a donation to the site out of my left over wages. It's not going to be much but it's as much as we can afford and I hope it will still be a useful contribution to the running costs.

 

It certainly does feel good to be in a position to repay money we owe though, although quite scarily we've paid off the largest amount of debt we've ever been in which was to Lloyds and in the next month or two we're going to be getting into a £102,000 debt as we've been approved for our first mortgage. :o But I think it's a good kind of debt and we've completely budgeted for it and since leaving our Lloyds accounts alone we've managed to keep our money in order. Funny that isn't it.

 

Lucid

[ladybird17]

I have been following this thread,and I am thrilled for you. Excellent news about your mortgage, and I hope that you get your dream home! You are a great example to others that doing it right and sticking with your principles works in the end.

P.S. Hope you get your expenses back - you can have another celebratory lunch!

[lucid]

Thanks ladybird and thanks.

 

It's not our dream home yet - we're buying the flat that we live in. In fact the main reason we're actually getting a mortgage in the area we live in - as prices are very expensive - is down to Mindzai's mum. She bought the flat we live in while we were at university so that we could live somewhere reasonable for cheaper rent. The plan has always been that we would end up buying it from her for the amount she bought it for - although the amount's slightly increased to cover her costs in selling it, but we thought this was going to be a long way off. It turns out that we weren't in such a bad position as we thought and managed to get approved - I don't think Lloyds could have damaged our credit records too much. I think the main factor in us getting approved was that the flat is actually woth more than we're buying it for, but I'm still amazed it's going ahead. It also helps that I managed to get a regular income job back in October as well. It's certainly a step closer to a dream home with a garden for the dog.

 

Thanks, Lucid