£7534.25 and still counting!!

[woolfie]

I spoke to a county court today and apparantly it can be done but it is a far more complex procedure than normal. The other problem is enforcement. When you win the case it is not easy for them to enforce the judgement across the border.

 

I hope some legal wizard on here will give us a full explanation on jurisdiction cause I have had a good look on the web and cant really find much that is relevant.

[seylectric]

I'm a bit baffled about the amount you can claim. I've just been looking at the h.m. courts service website and found this in relation to county court fees:

 

"To issue a claim form where your claim is for money only and the amount is:

 

up to £300 = £30 fee

£300.01 - £500 = £50

£500.01 - £1,000 = £80

£1,000.01 - £5,000 = £120

£5,000.01 - £15,000 = £250

£15,000.01 - £50,000 = £400

£50,000.01 - £100,000 = £700

£100,000.01 - £150,000 = £900

£150,000.01 - £200,000 = £1,100

£200,000.01 - £250,000 = £1,300

£250,000.01 - £300,000 = £1,500

 

over £300,000 or for an unlimited amount = £1,700

 

To issue proceedings where your claim is for something

other than money = £150

 

Here: http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoabout/fees/county.htm

[thegoodsamaritan]

Ok I'm no lawyer but this is what i've pieced together over the last few weeks from browsing the forums and the net.

 

Cases up to £5,000 in England and Wales go through the small claims court, this is what most people here are doing as it means they don't have to foot the other parties legal bills even if their claim is unsuccesful. I've seen it listed elsewhere on this forum that fees in the small claims court range from £30-£120 and this tallies up with the figures above. Anything above £5K is outwith the small claims court and you can be held liable for at least some of the other parties legal fees if your action is unsucessful (so I understand).

 

Scottish courts are different. I got this info from the govan legal site, kudos to them by the way!

Claims worth up to £50 incur court fees of just £7, claims from £50-£750 (the maximum in the small claims court in Scotland) have court fees of £37.

Cases up to £200 the banks can't recover any of their expenses if they lose, £200 or over in the small claims court they can only claim up to £75 if they win.

 

In any case if (when! ) you are succesful you can claim back the court fees anyways

[woolfie]

Hope I can get some help here or atleast a bit of advice!!

 

I have now sent my LBA because despite having added up my charges on my two main accounts and coming to a total of £8500 I am sure I have had other charges on different accounts including my mortgage account.

 

Over the past 6 years and due to some unwise spending I have ended up with a huge personal loan, somewhere in the region of £37000, which was, in part, used to pay off the charges that the bank had applied to my accounts.

 

Like most people on here I pretty much accepted this but not any more!!

 

I am wondering how far I can take this. I feel that had I not had all the unlawful charges then I would not have required such a large personal loan and have therefore been charged interest on the loan which covered the charges.... and on and on it goes!!

 

When I sucessfully claim my charges back it is my intention to pay off some of the loan but should i also be able to claim back the interest on the loan which relates to the charges?

 

The bank just kept increasing my overdraft again and again then they would give me a loan to pay it off. Then give me another overdraft facility then increase my loan. At one point my overdraft was sitting at over £10,000.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Woolfie

[caro]

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=5584&highlight=loan

 

This may be of interest to you.

[woolfie]

Thanks for the link Caro that is very encouraging. Very similar story to ours. We ended up selling our house!!

 

 

Thanks

 

Woolfie

[caro]

You could go to a lawyer, but he will charge you (and will probably need at least £1k up front). If possible it's definitly worthwhile keeping it below £5k so that it stays in Small Claims. This is important protection in case they defend it and win, because it means they can't recover their costs from you. Remember, if your case is proceduraly flawed, they can get it thrown out without having the actual issue addressed, which would be a real bummer, because you'd then get hit with their costs (probably several thousand). If it's in Small Claims, there is simply no upside to them for defending it.

 

Bear in mind that you can treat every single charge as a seperate issue, so it is perfectly acceptable for you to sue them in chunks of £5k, until you've recovered it all. They'll probably get the idea after the first lot and do a deal to settle the lot.

 

One other thing to remember is that you need to add interest to each charge of 8% per annum, calcualted daily. In your case I imaging it will bump up the final amount by quite a bit. you can download a spreadsheet elsewhere on this forum which will do it for you.

 

Overall, unless you feel you must, I would stay away from lawyers. First of all, you'll probably have to convince him that your claim is valid. Secondly, in my experience lawyers get pretty humpty if you try to tell them how to do their jobs, so he'll probably resist taking detailed instructions from you about how to fight the claim. Also, there is almost no chance that your lawyer will be as motivated as you to get your dosh back, so he'll probably spend a lot of time trying to get you to settle for half or something like that.

 

Just thought I would remind you of Roberts warning about keeping your claim under £5,000, because if it goes over, you could end up paying the banks costs. Think about the consequences of taking on too much. You have lost your house already, but it could get worse if you take on your bank and lose. Please be extremely cautious!

[woolfie]

Thanks for that but as i am in scotland the limit is a paultry £750 so it looks like I may be spending a lot of my summer in court!!!

 

Thanks

 

Woolfie

[tedblue]

I see what you mean about being in a similar boat. Good luck young man!

[woolfie]

£190 offered in full settlement for one RBS account but they have put in a gagging order so have written back telling them to bog off!!

[woolfie]

Letter back today removing conditions to their offer. Woo hoo one down several to go!!

[fruitycar]

"....keep right on to the end of the road, keep right on to the end..."

[caro]

Moving in the right direction now. Well done.

[woolfie]

Oh and I have given my 5% fyi!!!!

[caro]

Much appreciated my friend. Have you done the survey too?

[woolfie]

oh yes survey done too!!

[tedblue]

Good work Woolfie, keep going mate.

[woolfie]

I have just received the following letter from the bank and would welcome comments:-

 

Dear Woolfie,

You - v - The Royal Bank of Scotland plc ("The Bank")

I refer to your above court action.

The Bank is of the view that its charges are fair, reasonable and transparent ant that the amounts debited to your account have been applied in accordance with your agreement with it and in comliance with all applicable laws and regulations. As such the bank does not accept that it has liability to you in law or that your claim has any prospects of succeeding in court.

In addition, it is the banks position that your claim is now time barred. According to your statement of claim, the charges you dispute were incurred between 28th March 2000 and 8th August 2000. In terms of the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, in general, a claiment has a Maximum period of 5 years, from the date on which the alleged loss was suffered, to make a claim.

Your claim is out with this period. It is therefore the Bank's position that you are out of time to make any claim in respect of charges that were applied to your account during the period you refer to. Accordingly, please confirm that you will immediately contact the court and arrange for your claim to be dismissed with no expenses due to or by either party.

We are prepared to allow you until the 8th November 2006 to confirm that you have instructed the court to dismiss your claim. Thereafter, we have no option to instruct our solicitors to appear in court on our behalf and argue that your claim is time barred. In addition, we will instruct our solicitors to seek to have you found personally liable for the bank's court expenses in doing so.

I trust this course of action will not become necessary.

In view of the contents of this letter we recommend that you seek independant legal advice

We look forward to hearing from you further as to how you propose to proceed.

Yours sincerely

Jonny Nisbet

Trainee Solicitor

 

Most of this letter is standard stuff I think. The fair and reasonable rubbish. I am not sure about the time barred part. Also they say they will pursue me for costs, surely they cant do that in small claims?

 

 

Please help on this one

 

 

Woolfie

[Robertxc]

Don't think I agree with them. See here: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/scotland/41999-20-year-claim-limit.html

[lickthewallfatboy]

also it might be worth looking into claiming back the interest on that £38K loan if you had to take it out to cover the charges you were accruing.

[woolfie]

Don't think I agree with them. See here: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/scotland/41999-20-year-claim-limit.html

 

Not sure about this. Is it not the case that the 20 years only applies when the pursuer could not reasonably have been expected to be aware of the loss. As the charges are on a statement that would be the banks defence? Or could you argue that there is no obligation to read statements and therefor I only became aware of full extent of the charges when i found this site?

[Robertxc]

It doesn't matter whether or not you knew about the charges - of course you did. BUT, since you're not a lawyer (I presume), you couldn't reasonably have been expected to know that they were unlawful, which means that you only knew you had been ripped off when it was pointed out to you. The five year limit is forward looking, not backward. You have five years to make a claim once you become aware of the need.

[bandonbhoy]

Is that interpretation correct?

Once you ebcome aware of some wrong you have five years to claim it back.

 

But can that knowledge about discovering the wrong today, about things which have taken place five, six, seven evn up to 20 years be applicapable to bank charges?

[Robertxc]

Why not? How do you think people get to sue fag companies for getting them hooked in the fifties and sixties? Admittedly these poor souls had to get special permission to go back that far, but the principle is the same. If they ripped you off 15 years ago, and you only found out about it today, you would have 5 years to claim. That's what it says.

[woolfie]

Am I right in thinking that the part in the letter about me being personally liable for costs is just bluster? Its a small claim so presumably they wouldnt have a hope of getting costs.