Offer for full amount pre-action excluding interest - to accept or not to accept?

[galileo]

I have received an offer in response to my LBA for the full amount excluding interest.

 

Has anyone rejected and successfully claimed interest on top with Natwest?

[Michael Browne]

Are we talking about overdraft interest due to your penalty charges or s69 8% interest?

If the latter, you can't claim this until you have filed at court and if they have offered full settlement you are obliged to accept, which means you no longer have a claim to file.

[Guest NATTIE]

galileo what amount are we talking about claim wise and interest wise?

[galileo]

imho

[Bicester1]

Hi

 

Same offer as me at LBA stage. £1800 and £1200 in contractual. I have written back and said I will accept charges and s69. No reply yet. If they say no I will issue N1 for charges and contractual but give the court the option of awarding me s69. Given them 7 days to reply

 

Bicester1

[Guest NATTIE]

galileo depends on how much you want the money, I guess the choice is really yours, money now or a few months time. so DEAL OR NO DEAL?

[galileo]

I'm still deliberating whether to accept or make a counter offer...not desperate for money. Another £845 in contractual interest is worth holding out for. I may even sign the acceptance form but change the figure on there to somewhere in between. I think other posters have done this with other institutions (altering the offer figure) and the changed figure has still been paid. I'll be watching this board with interest in the coming days and will keep you posted.

[gizmo111]

I'm still deliberating whether to accept or make a counter offer...not desperate for money. Another £845 in contractual interest is worth holding out for. I may even sign the acceptance form but change the figure on there to somewhere in between. I think other posters have done this with other institutions (altering the offer figure) and the changed figure has still been paid. I'll be watching this board with interest in the coming days and will keep you posted.

 

I dont think you wil lget away with changing the amount offered.

[prushton]

If you put yourself to the trouble of sending a letter asking for your money back, why if your not in a hurry for the money would you not hold out for the full amount? , after all they owe you the money, and you will get it a few months down the road.

[Guest NATTIE]

prushton- i think bicester1 has a good thread re contractual interest, in that it is at the courts discretion however, 8% s69 interest maybe a better avenue to go down

[Parkvale]

prushton ,

Good point about " that they owe you the money ,and you will get it in a few months anyway." The banks are very cynical and if they can find a way out from paying up,they will. I am onto my third claim with N.W. and i have always been extremely wary of their tactics. Which this weekend appear to have changed again. Owing to all the debate on this forum, Please do not get complacent, because they could have us running around for quite a long time yet. I apologise for being so sceptical, but i have

had a long and bitter fight with N.W. over the last 6 years. Which has taken me to the edge of bankrupcy and changed my life dramatically, and i am pretty sure there are alot of people who have come off worse than me. Please be careful with these banks

and their cynical ways.

[petrafyde]

Hi

 

Same offer as me at LBA stage. £1800 and £1200 in contractual. I have written back and said I will accept charges and s69. No reply yet. If they say no I will issue N1 for charges and contractual but give the court the option of awarding me s69. Given them 7 days to reply

 

Bicester1

 

 

Hi Bicester,

 

Would it be too much trouble to post a copy of what you sent them rgrds, charges & s69? I ask because this will very likely be my modus operandi also, I firmly believe that if it goes to court after I have dropped the amount I wouldn't be viewed as a greedy litigant by pursuing?

 

S

[galileo]

Bicester it would be really helpful if you'd update us with what Natwest's reply is to your letter, as and when received...

[Bicester1]

Hi

 

Will certainly update you.

 

This is the letter I sent them:

 

Mr. S Higley

Customer Relations

Ground Floor

National Westminster House

225 Shenley Road

Borehamwood

WD6 1TE

Monday, February 05, 2007

WITHOUT PREDJUDICE

 

Dear Sir,

 

ACCOUNT NUMBER:

I refer to your letter of the 24th Jan. received today in reply to ours of the 18th December. This has clearly crossed with our letter before action. I write on behalf of both of us and I will deal with the issues raised by you seriatim.

I have never disputed that you make your terms and conditions clear. The dispute is as to their legality. Illegal contracts are unenforceable. I did think that the banks might have moved on from the “it’s in the terms and conditions” argument by now.

The fact that Nat West provides other banking services free is irrelevant to this case. I note that the former Head of Personal Banking at Lloyds did make an admission that the charge regime raised income, to cross subsidize these “free” services, this was a tacit admission the charges are by definition penalty charges, not liquidated damages and constitute unlawful enrichment.

I note that you do not accept the [legal] basis of our complaint; however I am aware that you have settled a considerable number of similar claims to ours, in full and as yet have not defended any. Furthermore you will be aware that the judiciary are increasingly striking out the banks defence as an abuse of process, or alternatively attempting to use standard disclosure as a means of forcing you to disclose your actual costs. I am aware that you are keen to avoid this and will eventually settle.

We are not going to go away, or be fobbed off. I am only a litigant in person but I look forward to taking this to trial. I assure you that we will not be deterred by delaying tactics, CPR part 18 requests from your solicitors or any of the other intimidatory and obfuscatory behavior which, is well documented on the Banking Action Group website. I will bring any such behavior to the attention of the court as an example of “unreasonable” behavior which may make you liable for costs.

Turning to your offer, I am glad that you have at least entered into negotiations, rather than simply continuing to insist that your charges are reasonable. I note your offer of £1878 in settlement of our claim for £3089.47. I am willing to accept this in partial settlement of our claim but it is not acceptable as a full and final settlement and we will continue the action to claim the full amount.

In view of the fact, however, that you have at least made an offer, as a gesture of goodwill on our part, we are willing to accept, in full and final settlement of our claim, the return of the illegal charges of £1878 plus s69 interest at 8% rather than contractual interest at your rate of 29.5%. This is £1878 plus £312.70 a total of £2190.70. I enclose a further schedule of charges detailing this, which is the absolute minimum we are prepared to accept in settlement. I am not prepared to enter into any further negotiation. In view of the relatively small sum involved I hope you will agree that this is a mutually acceptable compromise and will avoid further costs for you and time wasting on our behalf.

We look forward to hearing from you within 7 days with your acceptance of my proposal. If we have not heard from you by then we will start proceedings in the County Court for the full sum and contractual interest.

Yours faithfully,

 

[galileo]

Any news from Natwest yet Bicester? Have they responded on your counter offer?

[Bicester1]

Hi

 

No reply yet. Am busy with the day job so will give them a few more days to reply but if no answer by Friday then its off to court we go!

 

Will keep you posted!

 

Bicester1

[galileo]

Bicester do you have any further news for us? Has anybody else succeeded in recovering the full amount plus any interest pre-action?

[Parkvale]

galileo,

I am also awaiting a possible offer from "our friend " Stuart . I have just had to alter my

spreadsheet , because of some wrong charges. Sent corrected spreadsheet back

special delivery. He very kindly offered to supply me with copy statements to help me .FREE OF CHARGE. Now i am getting really worried . Total change of tack here.I have charged them the exact interest rate they charged me 5.75% above base per annum. Now if they refuse to pay me interest . I will continue with my claim through the courts . In my spreadsheet i included s69 interest at 8% and informed them to disregard this amount if settled within 2 weeks This at leasts gives Nat West the option to settle now thus avoiding , solicitors fees,court costs and court interest . In my

case that is over £2k. I would be very happy to receive my charges and compounded interest back at such an early stage . Interest at 29.5% would be very nice, but now they may try to defend this in court.

[galileo]

It will be very interesting to see if they are prepared to raise their offer pre-action, or whether they just offer the full amount and absolutely refuse to pay a penny interest...

 

That's why I'm waiting to see what response Bicester has had to his letter...

[Parkvale]

That galileo, in my case is the £2k question. It does not make good financial sense on their part to go down the legal route. I am just trying to give them a Deal or no Deal.Its their choice.

[Guest NATTIE]

I have to dissent on this one, a court can only award costs at 8% or contractual and NatWest have been good at arguing over the contractual interest part you could be spending a lot of time in the process to argue it. If you fail to accept the offer of charges settlement, you could potentially have your claim struck out because of having an offer in full for charges and then declined it. It is your choice but I have now warned you of the consequences.

[Parkvale]

If i am charging them exactly what they have charging me on their confirmation of charges . Which are the agreed terms between Nat west and myself .Surely i would be entitled to claim back the same amount with the same interest they charged me at this stage. I hope that makes sense. They are obviously moving in a different direction presently, but still have not entered a courtroom yet and revealed their true costs. Yes i do agree about the potential of having the claim struck out , but are N.west really trying to settle these cases or are they still being as cynical as ever .

[Guest NATTIE]

if you are arguing that the charges are unlawful then you are entitled to...

So if you are claiming the interest is unlawful then case law please....

Only a judge can award interest so argue contractual interest before a judge and see what happens. As I said I have posted merely to make sure that the pitfalls are clear to galileo.

[galileo]

I know the pitfalls, I must say I'd be surprised if natwest offer any more than the claim amount pre-action. We just need to know what their reaction is if you try and negotiate any interest on top pre-action. I'm sure the matter will become clearer soon...

[Guest NATTIE]

I discussed this point a few times in the chat room over the last few weeks and the discussion said basically the same, only a judge can offer interest not the bank, the offer of full settlement of charges could be seen by a judge of a rejection of settlement, ie unreasonableness by you the claimant.