Battle with Abbey

[GaryH]

Here you go;

Dear Ms Kirkman

 

You -v- Abbey Plc

Claim No: *******

 

Thank you for your letter dated **/**/**.

 

I am sorry that you seem to have interpreted my last letter as an indication that I do not wish to pursue settlement discussions. This is patently not correct. I am fully amenable to an amicable settlement of this claim and have never suggested otherwise.

 

My letter was intended to state my objection to Abbey Plc's attempt to seize upon a judgement which is completely irrelevant and spuriously quote it in an attempt to persuade me into accepting a derogatory sum in settlement of this claim. Despite your denials, it is quite clearly the case that you have been instructed to exploit the judgement of Berwick -v- Lloyds to your advantage as a means of dissuading your customers from pursuing their claims against you. I quite reasonably consider this to be intimidatory and I still await your retraction of this reference.

 

I welcome your statement that you wish to settle these matters without the need for further expense of protracted litigation.

 

However, may I respectfully suggest that settlement negotiations could in fact have taken place at any time in the previous 6 months, but instead, in common with the hundreds of similar claims brought against your client, it has chosen to rebut with template letters or otherwise completely ignore all previous correspondence and settlement attempts, both prior to and during proceedings.

 

Notwithstanding the above, in an effort to facilitate an amicable settlement to these matters I will now attempt to narrow the issues in dispute to see if we can reconcile our areas of disagreement.

 

As you know, I object to the default charges which the bank makes because I say they are penalties and that they exceed actual loss incurred as a result of the breach of contract from which they arise. As such, they are contrary to well established principles in common law and statute.

 

You state in your defence that the charges levied to my account are a reasonable and genuine pre-estimate of damage incurred by way of "administrative expenses" as a result of each breach, and as such amount to liquidated damages clauses as opposed to penalties.

Further, in previous correspondence you have also initially refused to settle the full amount of some claims because "defaults have occurred on your account for which their must be some charge". It could be argued that this statement is tantamount to an admission that your charges are not an equal reflection of your loss.

 

It therefore seems to me that this whole case can be easily settled if you simply provide evidence of your clients’ actual costs. It is very clear that this is the fundamental crux upon which these matters rest.

 

Upon disclosure of such costs information I will of course be happy to amend the value of my claim accordingly, in order that both parties may be in the same position as before the breach occurred - in accordance with the principles of common law upon which my claim is based.

 

I strongly believe that it is in the interest's of both parties in the present case, as well as the court and in fact the general public, if only you were to verify your assertion that your charges are in fact a pre-estimate of your "administrative expenses", by disclosing information regarding these expenses and how such costs are calculated.

 

In view of this, please find attached a request for information and clarification under CPR Part 18. This request is for clarification of matters directly referred to in your defence and is necessary to prepare my case in advance of the forthcoming deadline for submissions of evidence. I believe the court would find this request appropriate within the provisions of Part 18 regardless of track allocation and I therefore expect a response within 2 weeks.

 

In the meantime, a copy of my most recent schedule of charges is attached to this message for your due consideration.

 

Kind Regards,

 

[you]

 

Attached:

- Schedule of Charges

- CPR Part 18 request

 

Copy by post and to ****** County Court

 

The following is the Part 18, based on rbrears Natwest one;

CLAIM NUMBER: *******

In the XXXXXXX COUNTY COURT

 

Between:

[YOU]

Claimant

-And-

 

 

ABBEY PLC

Defendant

 

 

_______________________

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION AND

 

CLARIFICATION UNDER CPR PART 18

_____________________________

 

 

DATE OF SERVICE: [date sent]

 

1. Please provide copies of the terms and conditions governing the account in question and which are referred to in Paragraph 3, 4 and 5 of the defence. The terms and conditions required are those that formed the contract between the Claimant and Defendant covering the entire period from when contract was first entered into until the present day, including amendments or alterations where appropriate.

 

2. In relation to each and every breach by the Claimant which resulted in a charge being levied as confirmed by the Defendant in its Defence please provide full details (with all relevant supporting documentation) of;

 

a) any letters, telephone calls, or incidents of manual intervention into the account in respect of each and every charge claimed by the Claimant in the Particulars of Claim;

 

b) how charges are applied to the account (whether automatically or by some other means) and when;

 

3. in respect of the Defendants reference to the "administrative expenses" to which the charges are averred to be proportionate, as referred to in paragraph 9 of its defence, please provide full details (with all relevant supporting documentation) of;

 

a) If the bank employs or operates any system, either automated or manually operated or otherwise, which is used to assess, audit, track or refine the "administrative expenses" or costs of dealing with current accounts incidents - in particular any delinquency incidents, such as refusal or otherwise of direct debits, referral of cheques for any reason, refusing or permitting any formally agreed overdraft limit to be exceeded or any other delinquency event, such a systems existance is required to be confirmed and named and full details given;

 

b) the justifiably objective principles upon which all such costs or expenses are calculated and result in the specific level of each charge levied by the bank in respect of each of the breaches which resulted in the charges now claimed by the Claimant.

A full response to each and every point of this request should be served within 14 days, by [date].

[Boris Becca]

Thanks Gary will send this of now, you are amazing.x

[GaryH]

Not sure about that, but thanks!

 

I forgot to say - send the letter as the main e-mail message, but paste the part 18 into a word document and save it - then send it as an attachment along with your charges schedule.

 

Also, send a copy of it all by recorded post.

[FoxyFiona]

subscribe

[Boris Becca]

ok all done. copied all docs too. should I send a copy to the courts for the attention of the judge? sent the E mail to Inga do you know the address direct to inga fr all hard copies? So her dead line is 26/06, what will she come up with next? Got in touch with foxy fiona as were on same ground, thanks once again.

[GaryH]

What, the letter and part 18 as above?

 

Or do you mean the court bundle?

[FoxyFiona]

Inga Kirkmans Addresss is:

 

Location TS6 B03

Abbey National House

2 Triton Square

Regents Park

London NW1 3AN

 

I would send it recorded as the one letter I sent her that wasnt she said she never got it for a week (yeah right!)

[Boris Becca]

The letter and part 18, as above.

Thanks for the address,Foxy, all done on Recorded del!!

[Boris Becca]

When I sent the E.mail to Inga, I asked for aknowledgement of the Email. This A>M I recieved this: Please refer to our address for service nominated on our aknowledgement of service.

Sorry for being thick,. but what does she mean by this. Is this an aknowlegement?

[Boris Becca]

I also wanted to askn you Gary about recent charges that have been debited from my account, can I apply these with the charges already being claimed? or best not. When I phoned to speak to Abbey(a general line) they said they cuold not reduce or remove these current charges as my account was being delt with at present by a legal team.I havnt yet mentioned this to Inga, cuold you possibly advice me please once again.

?

[FoxyFiona]

When I sent the E.mail to Inga, I asked for aknowledgement of the Email. This A>M I recieved this: Please refer to our address for service nominated on our aknowledgement of service.

Sorry for being thick,. but what does she mean by this. Is this an aknowlegement?

 

 

Goodness knows - but it does show they have it. I still havent had anything yet FFx

[GaryH]

Hi Becca,

 

Send the letter and part 18 by post as well - to the address given on the acknowledgement of service form. If you can't find it then ask noobrider - he got the same response from Inga.

 

Unfortunately you cannot add new charges without a formal amendment, which is a lot of hassle. When they offer to settle you should ask Inga to include them. If she refuses just say ok, fair enough I'll start a new claim for them then.

[Boris Becca]

Yep, fairenough, thet is what I will do, do not to complicate anything further. I have alresdy sent the hard copies to the address that Foxy Fiona supplied,a couple of posts up. Should I check this out with Noob? Obviously recorded delivery. I Emailed Inga asking ifshe recieved yesterdays E mail and she simply replied, "I have alreadt replied, meaning the Quote above!! I will leave it now just want to make sure she cannot create further delays. Its madness and totally wrong. I feel angry today!

[GaryH]

No, its ok - I've just noticed the address Foxy posted for you above and that is the correct one.

[Boris Becca]

Thankyou both , Gary and Foxy. xx

[noobrider]

You can email it to [email protected]

that is the address that is quoted on the acknowledgement of service.

[Boris Becca]

I have E mailed to the above mail address also, 3 times lucky hey, foxy, did you mail yours to the above address aswell, did you get a responce from Inga in anyway?

Gary am I supposed to send a hard copy of all to the courts, I have copies ready incase.

[FoxyFiona]

No I just send it to her email address, and by post and a copy to the court. Nothing yet from Inga, not holding by breath either - just as well think I maybe blue by now. Would love to see her `to do` list, starting to wonder if they do everything by deadline piority??

[Boris Becca]

Its just incredable isnt it. Thank GOD,I say for these guys here, I would of given up ages ago otherwise, do you know any one easle who is also in a simalar position to us, whos threads I could read?

[FoxyFiona]

No sorry all the others Im in contact with seem to be further down the line, or settled - paid in full.

[noobrider]

it may take them a week or so to fathom out the new strategy it could go a couple of ways. Either they decide its too much hassle and decide to settle before the deadline set or push you to get it made into a court order and then settle somewhere in between the deadlien the court sets, or completely ignore all of it and let you go for them for breach of a court order

[CheZZyBaby]

I'm not too sure if I've done anything right, all new to me, just received a defence from abbey and at the same time they have offered me 65% of the claim. I have looked at the letter's in the library and declined the offer. I would like to ash has anybody gone all the way with the Abbey i.e court or have they paid out before. Getting very nervous, the amount they offered was the exact amount I was overdrawn in my account.

 

Please help

[DS11]

hi,just received letter from northampton county court -notice of transfer of proceedingsit saysto all partiesadefence to this claim has been filed.the claim has been transferred to the court covering the area where claimant lives etc.please read accomp documents carefully and notethe all ques should be returned to blackpool county court.then on next page after my name and abbey,it says;without hearingit is ordered that;1.the filing of aq be dispensed with in this case unless the dis judge at the court of transfer orders otherwise;i take it this is reason why no aq is with the letter!what happens next please?do they send a court date?dave

[Boris Becca]

Firstly Noob, thankyoy for explaining possible outcomes of our action taken, the 1st would be far preferable eh? I dought it though. Thank you for helping over the last couple of days , keep me posted of any news!

[Boris Becca]

Have just had the date of my court hearing through, it is 29th August 2007, @ 2pm ,time allowed 2 hours. What do I do now?