Fi Vs the Abbey, Has Anyone been to court yet?

[fionamc]

Hi my 1st post i've just sent off my AQ, but i was wondering has anyone actually been to court yet?

[Mad Nick]

Hi, a bit surprised that you've got as far as AQ without having worked out the answer from reading threads. You really should do that.

 

But as you haven't, and you might not want to hear this (but best you realise) but quite a few people actually go to Court, either for Preliminary Hearings (guess at 1 in 10, but only a proportion of people get these hearings) or the actual Hearing (1 in 30 ?).

 

Preliminary hearings are basically when the Judge wants either to give his Directions in person and/or to encourage settlement. Sometimes the Banks don't bother to turn up, sometimes they do. Nothing gets decided - you basically just have to grin and bear any flack which comes your way usually from a grumpy Judge, but often it seems quite painless.

 

As for the actual Hearings themselves, again, people go and sometimes the Banks turn up, sometimes they don't. If they do, it's only for big and/or contentious claims. The Bank's tactic then is to ambush people outside the Court room beforehand and try to settle the charges element of such claims, leaving them to go into Court to tackle the contentious bits (such as removal of defaults, charges greater than 6yrs or 28.7% unauthorised overdraft interest claims, or estimated claims) in front of the Judge. That's happened to only a handful of people with Abbey since I started on CAG.

 

But if you're claim is around £5K or less, and just for 8% Statutory or even with reclaiming overdraft interest and with none of the complications I mentioned above, then pound to a penny Abbey will settle after they receive your Court bundle but before Court itself.

 

Regards, Mad Nick

[fionamc]

Do i actually need to send anything back with the AQ or just the form itself?

[Karish]

No you dont have to send anything back with the aq. But there was some information in the new strategy for allocation questionnaires that is very useful to help when filling in this form. I agree with Nick that you should read through other peoples threads to help you with the process. A lot of your questions will be answered and you will learn more about what happens next. You need to have a look at the court bundle documents and prepare yourself to go to court. From reading different threads you will see that there is no way of telling how abbey will deal with your case so you need to be prepared.