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

[London1971]

Indeed but they are being utter d@cks , whether they have the right to do it or not .

[Stormy1976]

Thanks for the replies, Express solicitors are despicable and their cut throat approach and slack and rude attitude  did not conform with my principles.. 

 

My defence statement might not be 326 pages.. I will put a photo here.. but I am confident that the judges will see reason. 
 

Quite disheartening I will be dealing with them.. in my profession we conduct business honestly and respectfully.. but then again I am a public servant not a fee fleecing institution! 
 

 

Edited July 4, 2021 by Stormy1976
Typo

[BazzaS]

On 28/06/2020 at 13:37, BazzaS said:

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)

 

I don't recall seeing a reply to if there was BTE insurance in place, and if there was, if Express asked if there was existing cover?.  ........

[Stormy1976]

Yes there was an insurance in place and had legal cost covered .. express solicitors did not ask for it. Only if I had made a claim with another company. 

[BazzaS]

Have you raised this (the existing BTE insurance):

a) with Express, and / or

b) highlighted this in your defence (and /or witness statement) ?

[Stormy1976]

Thank you BazaS, yes I have highlighted this in my defence statement. I will upload this tomorrow morning. 
 

[Stormy1976]

Hi All, and haven't been here for a while as have been ready the 356 pages of defence from Express Solicitors and working 7am-7pm which so rightly Express solicitors point out in their defence statement. 

 

The case is stood out due to lack of judicial support. Another date will be provided. But due to work commitments i have told the court that i will not be available until late September, when one of my projects reaches an important milestone so i need not to be distracted. 

 

Interesting that in their defence statement ES have been able to submit every single record of my telephone conversation with their staff..but yet they couldn't provide me under SAR with those details. This is a start! 

There are lots of interesting stuff on that defence and i have gone line by line with my arguments, some statements from their so called junior solicitors whose daily rate is a whooping £230p/h are not backed by records of our communication, that made me smile. 

 

As I said, I am completely baffled that a firm which believes to be working with high ethics, puts themselves in this position. 

The records of the conversation are usually around me explaining to ES junior solicitor that i have provided her with the information on several occasions, that I am unable to answer the phone during the day, that i work 7am-7pm due to high pressured work environment in a very challenging London Local Authority. I am a transformation strategy manager for local government, and i strive to improve the lives of people not make them miserable. 

 

Ironically one of the projects in my programme is how to deal with debts ethically- so we don't put residents in despair quite a contrast to what's happening in my own private life. 

 

I welcome your comments and will be asking some questions now on my defence statement as I work on the case, unfortunately it's been very difficult to keep up with it. But I am determined to make my case in a straightforward factual reasonable manner. 

[BankFodder]

I'm completely out of the loop on this and I can scarcely remember what has happened but I'm a bit confused by your post above in which you start off by saying that you are looking at their defence – and then towards the end of your post you asked for comments about your defence statement.

 

[Manxman in exile]

I think Stormy has got confused.  She's defending the claim.

 

It's her former solicitors who are claiming against her for breach of contract.  (I think she unilaterally discontinued a NWNF agreement with them, and they are trying to recover costs and expenses for work they had done - if I recall correctly - I can't remember exactly).

[Stormy1976]

I didn’t get confuse no, I am putting forward my arguments against ES defence statement. There are a number of inconsistencies there  and I have gathered the evidence together for the judge at the hearing. Eg: ES say on 18 Aug they emailed me reg the SAR but as they didn’t hear back from me they thought I was satisfied with their basic response. I have in fact a copy of the email I sent that day to the partner of the firm stating that this response is inadequate and I will be making a complaint at the ICO, which I subsequently did. 
 

On another paragraph ES has a statement from their junior solicitor saying she’s spoken to me and advised me to call my insirance and tell 

them not to proceed with any claim as it invalidates the work ES is doing.. I found that puzzling for two reasons: 1- there were no records of this conversation either in writing or in their phone transcript they have put together and 2- I never called my insirance company to ask them for an injury claim.. 

 

[Stormy1976]

@BankFodder good to hear from you and hope you’re keeping well. 
 

Apologies I should have explained, the case had a hearing due on 16/7 but was stood down due to lack of judicial review. 
 

I have spent the last two weeks reading the defence statement and  materials from ES, and making notes/ preparing the evidence where the information provided is not correct. 
 

Is this the right approach please? Can I upload the defence statement here.. obv I will remove all defence to names and addresses . 
 

I would be grateful for some advice.

 

Kind regards 

 

Stormy

[Stormy1976]

***Update*** Case against Express Solicitors won.
 

Hello everyone on this thread and forum. 
 

Today I want to share the good news that thanks to everyone on this forum and the outstanding support I received by esteemed forum members, I won the case against Express Solicitors.

It was a long two hour hearing, and I was self represented, whilst Express had appointed a barrister, however it was a very fair hearing and the judge dismissed the case. 
 

I will write the reasons that the judge stated for his decision shortly, as I have just come home, but I just wanted to say a huge thank you to you good people on here. It’s been two very stressful years and what with being presented yesterday with another high fee from express solicitors for their legal representation today. 
 

More  soon.

have a great week end

 

Stormy

[BankFodder]

Hi, I'm so pleased for you.

Fantastic and especially satisfying that they even had the nerve to send you another bill and in the end they lost the case.

I'm sure the bills that they were sending you were intended to intimidate you so a big Kudos for toughing it out and standing your ground.

I'm sure lots of people will be delighted for you and of course we look forward getting every nasty detail!

Once we got it all down, we will tweet it to Express Solicitors so that they understand that they can't bully everyone and that they ought to think about their reputation as well as their profit objective

 

 

Personal Injury Solicitors | Accident & Injury Solicitors | Express Solicitors

WWW.EXPRESSSOLICITORS.CO.UK

---

With over 1000 years combined legal experience, we'll get you more compensation than anyone else. Get a free consultation with our expert...

[honeybee13]

Very well done to you and the advisers here and thank you for letting us know.

 

HB

[Manxman in exile]

Congratulations and well done.  You've actually done much better than I feared you would!

 

I'd be very interested to see the judge's thoughts.

 

Again - well done!

[FTMDave]

Well done on your victory! 

[Stormy1976]

Thank you so much @BankFodder @honeybee13 and so many others that I will mention shortly since I’m on a mobile device. 
 

I will write every single detail that I noted down from the Judge’s decision, and I hope this helps others  as much as it did me. It was really unfair the way I was treated and it made me feel very sad quite often and stressed to the maximum. Things like this can have all sorts of impact on people.. however one thing I have to say  is to have faith in humanity and of the good people out there/ on here.

My eternal gratitude to every  one of you. 

[BankFodder]

In addition to knowing what the arguments were and the chain of events, I'd be very interested to hear if the judge made any particular comments about Express Solicitors

Personal Injury Solicitors | Accident & Injury Solicitors | Express Solicitors

WWW.EXPRESSSOLICITORS.CO.UK

---

With over 1000 years combined legal experience, we'll get you more compensation than anyone else. Get a free consultation with our expert...

 

 

[London1971]

Ace news

[BankFodder]

What was the order for costs? How long have they got before they are required to pay?

[brassnecked]

Excellent news, but the cheek of them submitting another bill just before the hearing Bet they didn't expect to lose.

[Stormy1976]

@BankFodder 

 

The judge was harsh on their practises and their terms and conditions of whatever agreement they claimed to have provided me with.. .. at some point he referred to one of the clauses of the CFA’s as nonsense and asked the Express solicitors barrister if he could make sense of it.

Through the evidences provided to the Judge it transpired that the Express solicitors tactics were deemed to be hard sales and that it was in fact the Express solicitors who’d terminated this work and not me. This was based on a telephone call transcript and a letter they sent to me..

 

the judge highlighted how polite I had been dealing with the matter and read a few phone transcripts and emails sent from me to express. The judge explained that  it is clear the defendant has indeed provided with all the required information but that the firm had failed to note  them correctly and persistently and inconveniently contacting me.
 

The judge also stated that in not one case, the claimant was acting in the best interest of the defendant. He was disappointed. The judge disputed the hourly rates for a junior solicitor and stated that I was charged at 200% more than the actual rate.
 

The judge was disappointed that a firm of solicitors claiming to be expert in injury claims had not in the space of six months appointed a medic to check me for my injury and he questioned why the defendant was so pressing on obtaining medical health records .. time after time.. 

 

lots of other things .. I will summarise concisely tomorrow. 
 

The order for cost from the claimant to the defendant  was £1400 for the barrister’s time at the hearing today.
 

I received this information yesterday by post.. my heart sunk! 
 

This was on top of the £3600 the claimant had raised in their statement. 
 

The judge asked that claimant pays me within 14 days the losses from my time off work today and my £3 parking fee. 

I must say the claimant had a very polite  barrister and I was impressed by the barrister’s professionalism.. who was very different to the way the claimant operates… but than he didn’t work for the claimant .. 

 

@brassnecked

Thank you so much. I’m delighted. It meant a lot to me. Not only financially but morally it was disheartening and I was very sad why such bitterness from the claimant… towards me. 
 

thank you so very much @London1971 for supporting me all along. It is hugely appreciated. 
 

@Manxman in exile the court decided in my favour and the judge dismissed the case! 

[BankFodder]

I've been looking through this thread carefully and I see that in its early stages I actually said that I thought that there was zero chance of winning.

How wrong I was and am very pleased that @Stormy1976 persevered even in the face of such negativism.

Bravo!

[London1971]

Probably,99% of the time that firm issues a CCJ, it remains undefended and Express win by default, which is precisely why they do it. In fact i'd not be surprised if it's part of their intended business plan. 

[Stormy1976]

1 hour ago, BankFodder said:

I've been looking through this thread carefully and I see that in its early stages I actually said that I thought that there was zero chance of winning.

How wrong I was and am very pleased that @Stormy1976 persevered even in the face of such negativism.

Bravo!

@BankFodder I wouldn’t have done it without your outstanding support, and everyone’s thoughts/ comments/encouragement  on here. 
 

It is an incredible outcome after many months of unnecessary anxiety.

 

Thank you so much!