Express Solicitors @ExpressSols- Breach of Contract, court summons *** Claim Dismissed - with costs!!!***

[BankFodder]

Who is it who advised you to go to express?

Also either you or your other half of been here for a long time and I'm gobsmacked that none of you still don't record your calls. Paragraph we give advice all over this site to read our customer services guide and record calls – and still people walk around ignoring it – until they wish they had – and sooner or later, everybody wishes they had recorded their calls.

I don't understand how they suggested you might get up to £6000 and they would keep 25% which is £1500 and now they seem to be claiming 50% of the possible maximum.

 

Where is the term of the contract which talks about not cooperating or withdrawing the claim and the costs which you will be responsible if you do so?

[bigdaddy36]

Thank you eveybody, (wife writing now) although i will open my own account soon

 

Yes - I was on Anxiety and A/depressant (pregablin- a controlled drug). This also helps with the neuron pain in my neck as it has sedetaing effects as per my GP

 

Just thought at the time that this was the correct course of action, with all the advets on the TV and Radio and know people who went down this route.

 

I have not been on this site before so yes not very wise not to keep records of calls

- it should be common sense when dealing with solicitors,

 

ironic as i keep records of lawyers at work when they advise me on a matter and they charge 15 min @£ xxx straight out of my cost centre.

I have only dealt with conveying solicitors who are quite clear, so assumed this is the same.

 

On 28/06/2020 at 11:47, BankFodder said:

Where is the term of the contract which talks about not cooperating or withdrawing the claim and the costs which you will be responsible if you do so?

 

Good question- i will find out and read the 40 sth page they have sent me.

[BankFodder]

Also, and I'm sorry to make you feel even worse – that I'm really completely mystified.

You had a perfectly good insurance which would have covered you for the damage to the vehicle and also the for the recovery of any personal injuries damages – without charging you any percentage because you had already paid your premium. The worst that would happen would be that you would pay the excess – which you have had to pay anyway because of the damage the vehicle – and they load you up at your next renewal – which they would do anyway because of the damage to the vehicle.

So despite the fact that you had perfectly good way of getting the money for your personal injuries, you went to somebody else and promised to pay them 25% of whatever they recovered.

[BankFodder]

 

Just click on SAR

 

Also I asked you early on about the term of the contract. I haven't had a reply.

[London1971]

Ok, don't worry, SAR produces all phone calls

 

https://www.expresssolicitors.co.uk/page-people/james-maxey#:~:text=James Maxey founded Express Solicitors,over more than a decade.

 

1. get a note from your GP on Monday explaining that you have been on AD's, for what reason and the consequences of being pressured and how bad stress is for your situation.

 

Enclose letter to this guy (see link) with a covering letter along the lines of. Send it with signed for delivery, do not email him!

 

Dear xxx

 

Please see GP note enclosed

 

Your agents were constantly pressuring me over the phone while I was at work, at home, and in the car during this period.  The very fact that I am on AD's should point to the fact that it is wholly inappropriate for you to send me a massive court claim form for £xxx, totally out of the blue. This has been and is continuing to be very detrimental to my condition, and I   expect the Court claim to be fully withdrawn and no more money owed,

 

I appreciate your rapid response 

 

Kind Regards

[bigdaddy36]

Thank you kindly for this, hugely appreciated.

Yes will call GP on Monday and I'll get the letter.

 

I did get quite overwhelmed with everything.

So very sound advice.

 

I will prepare a strong case/letter for the court based on the advice here.

 

On 28/06/2020 at 11:58, BankFodder said:

Also I asked you early on about the term of the contract. I haven't had a reply.

 

Apologies- it will be uploaded shortly. Husband is scanning the document pages and i will merge it in one single pdf soon

[BankFodder]

Don't send anything off without letting and seeing it first. I think you've done enough damage already.

Send an acknowledgement of the claim – with intention to defend. Nothing else.

[London1971]

Nope just send it to the Managing Partner for now,

 

Good chance of a result without going anywhere near a court with the GP letter. Not 100%, but pretty good.

[BankFodder]

Just now, London1971 said:

Nope just send it to the Managing Partner for now,

 

Good chance of a result without going anywhere near a court with the GP letter. Not 100%, but pretty good.

 

Sorry, but I disagree with my site team colleague on this. Please just send the acknowledgement with intention to defend and nothing else until we see it.

Also I suggest that you contact your own insurers and tell them that you want to begin a claim in respect of the personal injuries he suffered as a result of the accident. They will be surprised and they won't be happy – but it's too bad.

[bigdaddy36]

On 28/06/2020 at 12:19, BankFodder said:

Don't send anything off without letting and seeing it first. I think you've done enough damage already.

Send an acknowledgement of the claim – with intention to defend. Nothing else.

 

Ah brilliant.

Thank you.

This is helpful regarding the court.

And i will upload any intended correspondence on here.

 

 I will contact my insurance to open a claim- this sounds sensible and justified. Thanks again.

[London1971]

Yup, of course send acknowledgement to defend,

 

Perhaps this is something that should have been sent a long time ago, before any mention of a court claim. Unfortunately I've had to have this fight before on many occasions  (my wife was sick) and it's always worked but never got to the stage of a court claim.

[bigdaddy36]

Thank you London1971,

 

I was in a bad place with the enormity of things taking place at the time the first Express demand of repayment came,and husband did advise for me not to ignore the letter and seek assistance,

 

i ignored it and focused on just getting through my work day- i had so much pressure at work and home with the kids so I simply couldn't cope- this is sincerely how i felt/and feeling right now- although i will fight. 

 

I am sorry to hear you have had to deal with this too, and hope your wife is in good health. 

[London1971]

Yes, in great health now.

 

But there are processes and procedures with Claim forms so I'll chime back in at some point  and let the others take it from here.

[BazzaS]

Do (did!) you have legal expenses cover through your car insurance?
 

if the solicitors accepted the case on a no-win, no-fee (NWNF) basis, and looked towards ATE (After the event) Insurance, they are supposed to check you don’t have pre-existing insurance (BTE - before the event - Insurance).

 

If they didn’t check / advise you - that might provide you with a get out!

 

edited to add 

Collision was in March 2019, so you are still in time to issue  court claim against the other driver / the MIB (provided one hasn’t already been started & discontinued)

Edited June 28, 2020 by BazzaS

[bigdaddy36]

Hi

 

Please find attached the document.

 

Thank you  kindly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apologies for the three part agreement. there was a glitch in the system and unable to unload it all in one

 

thanks all

Conditional_agreement.pdf

[BankFodder]

Did you say somewhere that the first contact was on a telephone call and that they spend a lot of time explaining the basic terms and conditions to you and effectively got you to agree to the contract that point?

[bigdaddy36]

I’ll find out for you BankFodder,

 

Wife is overwhelmed and gone for a lay-down and I’ll ask her for the facts when she wakes up and will get back to you ASAP.

Thanks again everyone for all your help, advice and support.

[BankFodder]

I'm sorry that your wife feels so bad – and I'm sure this hasn't been a very easy discussion on this thread.

I've put together a very rough draft defence.

I would be grateful if you would have a look at it as soon as possible – and particularly I'm interested in you confirming or correcting the history of your engagement with this company

 

Quote

Defence

 

1.       The claimant’s claim is denied.

2.       I do not agree that I am indebted to the claimant as alleged or at all.

3.       I am a layperson and I have no legal knowledge whatsoever.

4.       This defence has been put together with the kind help of a friend.

5.       The claimants are solicitors operating as a claims management company which specialises in advertising services where people are involved in accidents and offer to recover compensation for their injuries on a no win no fee basis.

6.       On the X X X date I was involved in an accident where a car driven by a person who turned out to be an uninsured driver ran into the back of my vehicle.

7.       I was fully covered by my own fully comprehensive insurance which covered me completely for all damage to my vehicle and also my own personal injury.

8.       Furthermore, as the third-party driver was an insured, there is an automatic right to claim against the MIB (Motor Insurance Bureau).

9.       Within a very few days of having an accident when I was still in shock and in pain, and out of curiosity I responded to a televised advertisement and I very quickly received a telephone call from the claimant.

10.   The claimant immediately took over the conversation and was clearly reading from a script and made their offer sound very attractive and spent a great deal of time going through a great deal of information which they said would be the basis of the contract between us.

11.   Amongst things which were discussed were whether I had insurance and whether my insurance was fully comprehensive.

12.   I was also asked how I was and I described the injuries of which I was aware and also told them that I was in shock and still suffering from shock.

13.   The claimants did not react or pursue the question of my shock any further. I suppose that they simply took note of it on a checklist.

14.   By the end of the conversation, the claimant was fully aware that I was completely insured and had no need for any additional service to recover any losses.

15.   However, the claimants at no point suggested to me that I should simply fall back on my insurance as it would be more advantageous to me or asked me why I did not do this.

16.   It seemed to be treated as “a given” that compensation for personal injury would be through the claimants and services.

17.   Additionally, in addition to my fully comprehensive insurance policy, I also had paid a supplement for “legal services insurance”. The claimant never raised this is a possibility or asked me whether I had such cover in place.

18.   In fact I now realise that my legal expenses insurance would have covered all of the services which the claimant purported to provide in return for a 25% success fee.

19.   On the basis of the telephone sales process I agreed to use their services to recover compensation for my personal injury.

20.   I do not really understand how this happened or why I did this.

21.   Within another very short time I received what I was told was an electronic copy of the terms and conditions and which I was required to sign electronically on my portable phone in order to confirm the agreement which we had made during our telephone conversation.

22.   I tried several times to access the link and the electronic signature form but was unable to do so.

23.   It seems that the system had a bug and it took an email exchange over several days and repeated attempts before the claimants corrected the problem and I was able to give the electronic signature.

24.   This confusion and difficulty also added to my stress and my ability to handle the matter competently

25.   I eventually signed electronically and my signature was transmitted to the claimants.

26.   I realise that I had to cooperate with the claimant and provide them with certain information including filling in forms and providing medical evidence and so forth.

27.   I completed certain forms almost immediately and returned them to the claimant and was surprised to find that they seem to have no trace of them and I received duplicate forms which once again I completed and sent them again.

28.   This happened once again and I became very frustrated that the claimant seem to be losing documents or that they were not managing them correctly.

29.   At the same time I started receiving phone calls from people calling on behalf of the claimant asking me further questions and pressing me for information which often I had already supplied.

30.   Calls were made at random times during the day – but generally speaking when I was at work and it was often extremely inconvenient to take the calls. There were many calls.

31.   The frequency of the calls and the timing of the calls often caused difficulties at work and I felt very badly stressed by them and seriously under pressure.

32.   I do not know why the claimant resorted to these calls. I made it clear that they were not welcome and it is not what I agreed or I envisaged when they first approached me and persuaded me to use their services.

33.   In the end, the stress became so great that during one of the telephone calls I interrupted the speaker and told her that I couldn’t continue, that it was too much for me and I was withdrawing the claim.

34.   The person on the phone representing the claimant made no attempt to change my mind or to inform me as to the possible consequences of this and simply seem to accept the situation.

35.   The call ended and I believed that that was the end of the matter.

36.   Since then I have been receiving demands for money at a rate which I have considered quite excessive.

 

37.   At some point during my dealings with the claimant it was made clear to me that they expected to obtain a settlement of between £4000 and £6000.

38.   I understood that the arrangement would be that I would pay them 25% of whatever they recovered so I envisaged that my maximum liability on the basis of what they had advised me would be £1500 if they achieved their maximum prediction of £6000.

39.   I am now extremely surprised that the claimants are making a claim of £3000 in respect of a claim for which the work had not been fully completed – (admittedly not necessarily through the fault of the claimant) – the £3000 amounting to 200% of the maximum commission envisaged by the claimant for a fully completed claim.

40.   The claimant has not produced any evidence of the work which has been carried out or by whom it has been carried out.

41.   It is the claimant which has described my behaviour as being a “breach of contract”.

42.   I agree that I eventually breached contract.

43.   This breach brought the contract to an end.

44.   Therefore my position is that as they are attempting to claim double the amount that they would have claimed that the contract be properly completed.

45.   The amount of money they seeking amounts to a disproportionate penalty and is therefore unenforceable.

46.   Furthermore, any term of a contract which forces a person to pay double the contractual amount because of their breach of contract must be “unfair”.

 

47.   The defendant respectfully draws the attention of the court to section 71 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 which creates upon the court a duty to investigate whether a term of the contract or terms of the contract are fair.

48.   The defendant does not have the legal experience or skills to do this herself and therefore asked that the court undertake this task.

49.   However, the defendant does respectfully draw the attention of the court to the unfair terms provisions of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 – and particularly schedule 2, example number 5 from the non-exhaustive list:

 

A term which has the object or effect of requiring that, where the consumer decides not to conclude or perform the contract, the consumer must pay the trader a disproportionately high sum in compensation or for services which have not been supplied.

 

50.  The defendant respectfully suggests to the court that this is an example which might usefully form the basis of an analysis of the true effect and disproportionate nature of the contractual term upon which the claimant relies and on the basis that it is unfair.

51.  Now that the defendant has reflected upon the matter and has researched a little and has talk to friends, the defendant now understands that the claimant solicitors are subject to a code of conduct which includes a requirement that they should not take unfair advantage of clients or others.

52.  It is now clear to me that the claimant solicitors operate a sales operation which has been refined and is intended to endless clients over the telephone as a result of a telephone conversation and that by and large the rest of the procedure, the provision of terms and conditions and the requirement of an electronic signature are generally treated as mere formalities.

53.  I have no legal knowledge or experience and also I was still bewildered after the accident and my initial casual enquiry somehow led me to become involved in what was apparently a binding contract.

54.  I believe that as soon as the claimant solicitors realised that they were dealing with a motor accident in which I was insured fully comprehensively, that they should have applied diligence and withdrawn from the sales attempt because effectively what they were doing was selling me duplicate rights.

55.  Whereas my insurance company would have continued to act on my behalf to recover compensation for my personal injury simply for the price of my insurance premium, the claimant solicitors persuaded me to enter into an agreement whereby I would lose 25% of any compensation which I would recover.

56.  I believe that this is effectively the equivalent of selling me duplicate rights and I believe that this together with the failure to exercise diligence and also by taking advantage of my uninformed position amounted to an unfair commercial practice.

57.  The defendant respectfully draws the attention of the court to the provisions of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

58.  Had I been in a calmer frame of mind. Had I been better informed or experienced. Had I had a longer time to reflect or to discuss with friends then I am sure that I would have taken a more rational view of the situation and would simply have continued with my insurance company and my and without any possibility of having to pay a 25% success fee.

59.  By way of a side note, the defendant draws the attention of the court to an incident which has just occurred when she submitted a subject access request to the claimant.

60.  The claimant has been perfectly satisfied with my identity and address to the extent that they were prepared to act on my behalf, by me into a contract, and eventually even serve proceedings addressed to me, in my name and at my address.

61.  However, when they receive my subject access request, instead of complying, they responded by demanding certified proof of identity.

62.  Under the data protection rules, data processors are entitled to ascertain a data subject’s identity where it is necessary.

63.  Clearly in this case it was not necessary and clearly this was simply an aggressive tactic by the claimant to place obstacles in my path and to cause unnecessary difficulties in obtaining my personal data.

64.  I would venture to say that the claimant’s behaviour was in breach of the Data Protection Act although it is not my intention to make an issue of this. I’m simply drawing it to the attention of the court as an indication of the claimant’s culture and treatment of litigants in person.

 

 

Also, did your wife explain to them on the telephone that she already had an insurance policy? Which was fully comprehensive?

[bigdaddy36]

Hello and many thanks

 

I've taken over from my husband here and once again I am extremely appreciative of your succint summary in points.

 

I confirm point 13  above to be accurate. I also confirm the history of the engagement with the company outline above to be ture and correct.

 

Thank you again.

 

[BankFodder]

Thank you. can you please also address the question I posted 2 hours ago about whether you discuss your existing insurance with  the claim management company

[bigdaddy36]

Hi

 

Yes i did explain as i was asked to provide Express with details of my insurance company and whether i had made a claim with them or not.

 

Gosh this entire thing makes me feel so brainless.

 

 

On 28/06/2020 at 20:56, BankFodder said:

Thank you. can you please also address the question I posted 2 hours ago about whether you discuss your existing insurance with  the claim management company

 

Thank you, sure, i have just done so.

 

Kind regards

 

Edited June 28, 2020 by bigdaddy36

[BankFodder]

Thank you. please monitor this thread for a further reply tomorrow but please send off the acknowledgement with intention to defend.

Study the draft defence  out very carefully and see if there's anything you want to add.

You will have to sign it as a statement of Truth at some point so you need to be very careful

Don't forget to send the sar first thing tomorrow in a separate envelope

 

Also it would be helpful if you would register on this forum with a separate ID so that there is less chance of confusion. Please do that straight away

[bigdaddy36]

Thank you for the advice, and yes I will monitor this tomorrow from my own laptop, as fortunately i am working from home so can have both work and private laptop open.

 

Husband has provided me with his account logging details so for the purpose of this thread i will use those details, but will also open an account of my own as the site seems to be a wealth of useful information.

 

I will send acknowledgement tomorrow, and yes signing it as a statement of truth and i will be careful, although the above is extremely accurate.

Do I still need to submit a SAR?

 

On 28/06/2020 at 21:01, BankFodder said:

Also it would be helpful if you would register on this forum with a separate ID so that there is less chance of confusion. Please do that straight away

 

 

Ah brilliant, we must have been on the same mind as just posted stating that.

 

I will open my account tomorrow morning - I assume I will be able to follow this thread then ok and post ok. I have been on other forums before, (when completed our immigration papers to Aus) so I think should be ok.

 

Many many thanks.

[BankFodder]

This site is a wealth of useful information if you bother to use it.

Yes, send the sar. I've already asked several times

[bigdaddy36]

Thank you. I will be doing both.

 

Kind regards