rpgsx3r v Natwest

[rpgsx3r]

Actually, I'm starting to think I'd be better off just using MCOL. Does anyone agree?

[hedgey06]

1) Is that just the charges+s69 8% total multiplied by 0.00022? (It’s about 30p a day). Is that correct?

No, it's the charges plus any overdraft interest that you're reclaiming X 0.00022pence to get the daily rate that you want the judge to award you.

 

2) In the particulars I’ve changed point 1 to show two accounts as I’m claiming for a personal and joint account. Any problems with this?

Think it depends what you feel comfortable with - I'd have claimed individually (but I'm shocking at juggling loads of figures at once!!!!) if you're happy to combine the two, I would suggest go for it!!

 

3) I’ve put the claimant’s and defendant’s addresses in, but there is another box at the bottom of the 1st page asking for the defendant’s name and address again. Is this for the defendant to complete, or do I have to fill it in again?

I just added Nat West's details here again (the Bishopsgate address - court clerk said everything was in order!!!)

 

Advice appreciated!

 

Hope the above helps! Hedgey xxxx

[hedgey06]

Actually, I'm starting to think I'd be better off just using MCOL. Does anyone agree?

 

Personally, I found the hard copy version and filing at the local county court in person was good for me. I found the hard copy form easy with clear instructions from CAG on how to complete. Plus, the court clerk checked the form over when I got there so I know that everything was fine with it as well. But I think it's down to personal choice as to whether you use MCOL or do the filing in person. Have a read of this to help you make up your mind - this is what actually swayed me to be honest with you!!! Moneyclaim and hardcopy claim compared

 

Good luck, hedgey xxxx

[rpgsx3r]

Thanks Hedgey, I think I will go to the courts on Monday in person.

 

One other question, in light of the Lloyds/Berwick case, do you think it is now advisable to include a copy of the T&C when submitting, or is this more suitable if there is a hearing? (In which case I potentially have more time). The account has been a Graduate and CurrentPlus account, and was opened in 96, so it could prove difficult for me to get copies of the T&C.

[rory32]

You could just toddle down to the bank and ask them for a copy of the terms and conditions as the accounts are current. Alternatively tell them you are looking to open an account and would like an application form - they should give you the t&c's with this.

Oh and to answer your question - yes I do think it is advisable to include the t&c's when submitting.

[rpgsx3r]

NatWest Current Account

19/4/07 - Checked statements. Owed £1237 in charges.

19/4/07 - Phoned NatWest and asked for money back - no joy.

19/4/07 - Sent Prelim letter based on template.

26/4/07 - Received 'looking into it' letter from NatWest

03/5/07 - Sent LBA

21/5/07 - Submitted N1 at Court

-----

 

Well, the N1 form has now been submitted with copies of the T&C and Schedule of charges (all in triplicate). Fingers crossed!

[hedgey06]

Hi rpg.............. excellent news! Well done, and keep us posted! Good luck, hedgey xxx

[rpgsx3r]

Received Acknowledgement of Service from Cobbetts today. I guess that means they have a further 14 days.

 

Also, I've edited the first post to remove other claims as I don't want it to get confusing! Starting a new thread for my wife's claims as they haven't sent all the information from the SAR and the time is up.

[rpgsx3r]

Ok, firstly I received the copy of my claim back from the court on Thursday with the Notice of Issue. Friday I received Notice that the Defendent filed an acknowledgement of Service on 4th June, giving them a further 28 days days to file a defence.

 

Have I understood this correctly? There is nothing I need do in order to comply at this point is there?

 

Then today I received a letter from NatWest dated 5th June. They offerred to repay the charges in full to the penny! £1237. I'm pretty happy!

 

However, the s69 interest and the court fee are not included in this offer, which totals a further £351.66. Is it worth hanging in there for this? I am aggreived that they didn't make this offer before I paid the court fees and would have accepted it, but as I've had to spend £120 (a lot to me as I'm now out of work) I would like to get that too, and the s69 interest would also be nice. Is it a standard tactic for Natwest to offer the amount for the charges at this stage? Do they ever make n offer including s69 interest and court fees without going to court?

 

Any and all advice appeciated.

 

 

 

NatWest Current Account

19/4/07 - Checked statements. Owed £1237 in charges.

19/4/07 - Phoned Natwest and asked for money back - no joy.

19/4/07 - Sent Prelim letter based on template.

26/4/07 - Received 'looking into it' letter from NatWest

03/5/07 - Sent LBA

21/5/07 - Submitted N1 form at court

05/6/07 - Received Acknowledgement of Service from Cobbetts

07/6/07 - Received Notice of Issue from Court

08/6/07 - Received Defendant's Acknowledgement of Service from court

09/6/07 - Received offer from Natwest to pay me 100% of charges

[rory32]

Have I understood this correctly? There is nothing I need do in order to comply at this point is there?

 

Yes, you don't need to do anything.

 

However, the s69 interest and the court fee are not included in this offer, which totals a further £351.66. Is it worth hanging in there for this?

Yes. They have made their offer to late - you have now filed and any offer should include your costs and the 8%.

[hedgey06]

Go for it rpg - keep the claim running. Tisn't your fault they can't pull their fingers out of their bums and deal with claims within the stated timescales. Did the same thing meself the other day - if they're not prepared to pay the court costs at least............. reject!!!!!!! Good luck, hedgey xxx

[rpgsx3r]

Thanks for the prompt replies guys. If I don't accept (and that's what I'm thinking at the moment) do you think it's worth replying to their letter saying I don't accept, or just ignore it?

[rory32]

You should always reply to an offer - if for no other reason than to make clear your rejection.

[hedgey06]

Sent them this one meself:

 

Response to settlement offer.

 

Dear Mr. Higley,

 

Thank you for your letter dated 22nd May 2007 offering me a refund of bank charges applied to my Nat West current account at a total of £xxxxxxxxx

 

You may not be aware that I commenced legal action against you for the full amount plus interest and court costs on xxxxxxxxx 2007. This claim was deemed to be served on Nat West on xxxxxxxx 2007. Therefore, I respectfully decline your offer of Full and Final settlement as this does not include the additional amount of £120 which is the fee I paid to file this claim in the xxxxxxx County Court.

 

If you wish to settle this matter in full, I am quite willing to accept the full refund of charges plus the court filing fee of £120 as a full and final settlement. Total of £xxxxxxxx.

 

I would ask that, if you are unwilling to settle for the above amount, you now refer this matter to your legal department for further instruction.

 

 

I trust this clarifies my position.

 

Yours faithfully

Feel free to use/modify to your own claim!! xxx

[rpgsx3r]

Excellent, thank you.

 

So did you not ask also for the s69 interest to be included in the figure? Or had you already accounted for interest in your main claim?

[hedgey06]

Pleasure!

 

Didn't ask for s69 interest to be included. Figured that if they rejected above letter it'd be in my favour if the judge could see I'd tried to settle with just charges and court filing fee.

 

Reckon they'll turn me down though - but at least the judge can see I'm a reasonable gal!!! xxx

[rpgsx3r]

NatWest Current Account

19/4/07 - Checked statements. Owed £1237 in charges.

19/4/07 - Phoned Natwest and asked for money back - no joy.

19/4/07 - Sent Prelim letter based on template.

26/4/07 - Received 'looking into it' letter from NatWest

03/5/07 - Sent LBA

21/5/07 - Submitted N1 form at court

05/6/07 - Received Acknowledgement of Service from Cobbetts

07/6/07 - Received Notice of Issue from Court

08/6/07 - Received Defendant's Acknowledgement of Service from court

09/6/07 - Received offer from Natwest to pay me 100% of charges

11/6/07 - Offerred to accept charges+court fees

19/6/07 - Received defence from Cobbetts

 

Ok, I sent a letter saying I would accept charges plus court fee but have received a response saying that their offer was the only one. I have also now received a defence from Cobbetts, so looks like I'll be going to court!

 

The gist of the defence seems to be that "the particulars of claim do not discolse reasonable grounds for bringing a claim against the defendant to recover bank charges" and that "if the claim is not properly particularised then the defendant will apply to strike out the claim and/or for summary judgement in respect of the same."

 

The defence also states that "on allocation the defendant invites the court to direct there be a case management conference in order for the court to consider the making of appropriate orders to give the claimant the opportunity to properly particularise the claim."

 

There is more, but it seems asthough it's long the same lines.

 

Where do I go from here? What are my obligations at this point? Should I receive information from the courts as to what happens next? Seems to be getting particularly serious now!

[rpgsx3r]

Could relly use some advice on this! I'm worried that I may have made a mistake and will totally lose out, though why they'd offer me the total charges in this case I'm not sure!?!?!?!

 

Anyone?

[hedgey06]

Calm down mate, you'll give yourself a heart attack! You've had (from the sounds of it) the standard cobblers from cobbetts. You don't need to respond to them at all, but you could always send them this letter that I sent them when I received their defence:

 

Cobbetts LLP,

58 Mosley Street,

Manchester,

M2 3HZ.

 

Re: Claim number xxxxxxxx

Your Ref: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

Dear cobblers,

 

On xxxxxxxxx 2007 I received a copy of your defence in the above case.

 

You may not be aware that your client has previously offered to return all penalty charges applied to my current account (copy of your client’s offer letter attached). However, as I filed this claim at xxxxxxxxxxxx County Court on xxxxxxxxxxxxx, I am unwilling to accept any offer that does not include the court filing fee of £120. Please find attached, a copy of my response to your client’s offer.

 

Should your client wish to settle this claim amicably, I am prepared at this stage to accept a full refund of all charges plus the court filing fee of £120.00. (I only put this in as I felt it would show the court that I've tried to be reasonable throughout the claim process!!!)

 

For your information I attach a copy of my schedule detailing the charges I am reclaiming from your client.

 

Yours sincerely

rpg

 

Attach a copy of nutty west's offer letter, a copy of your refusal letter and a copy of your schedule of charges. Send a copy of everything to the county court as well.............. just so they can see how reasonable you are!!! Send the county court a covering letter with the other documents, something like this:

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

Re: Claim Number xxxxxxxxx

 

Please find attached, a copy of all documents sent to Cobbetts LLP in relation to the above claim. I respectfully ask that these be added to my claim file for information purposes.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Hope this helps a bit mate, just sit back and wait for whatever the courts send you now. You're only a few days behind me, and I received my AQ yesterday so you should hear from the court soon. Best of luck, Hedgey xxx

[rpgsx3r]

Phew! Thanks for the reassurnce, it helps a lot! I must admit, after seeing others had received a similar letter I was a little more relaxed too. It doesn't help that a family member is worried that it's got to this stage and thinks I should have accepted the offer, but I was determined to stick to my guns!

 

I think the letter makes a lot of sense, thanks for the template, though I won't c&p it wholesale - Cobbetts might not appreciate it!

[steven4064]

You're only a few days behind me, and I received my AQ yesterday so you should hear from the court soon. Best of luck, Hedgey xxx

And I'm a few days ahead of hedgey - deadline for AQs was Monday. We have a convoy!!

 

Steven

 

If this post is helpful, please click the scales

Any opinions are without prejudice & without liability.

Almost everything I know concerning the law I learned from this site

[rpgsx3r]

About to send my AQ off today (deadline 9/7/07), but I have a quick question. Is this (from the template library) only needed if the claim is above £5k? Would it be worth using some of it to highlight the current situation anyway, or best to just omit it completely as my claim is under £5k?

 

You may wish to add reasons why the case is more suitable for Small Claims Track if your claim value exceeds £5' date='000 or provide reasoning why the other side should provide evidence of their costs! You could include similar text to this....[/b']

I am respectfully requesting that my claim be allocated to the small claims track. This issue is not a complicated one; it is an issue of fact and not of law. The issue is only whether the money levied by the Defendant in respect of its customer’s contractual breaches exceed their actual costs incurred. I am happy to pay their actual costs and I am surprised the Defendant did not counterclaim for these, because I would have paid them without argument.

 

However, the continuing problem is (in common with the 100s of other cases currently being brought by other bank customers) that the banks refuse to reveal the details of their penalty-charging regime. As the banks have a fiduciary duty towards their customers, they have a duty to deal straightforwardly and in utmost good faith.

 

Accordingly, I would respectfully ask that the court in this case, not withstanding allocation to the small claims track, order standard disclosure. I understand that it is in the courts discretion to do so. I believe this would bring a rapid end to this litigation.

[hedgey06]

Hi rpg, hope I've caught you before sending the AQ off. You'd be better off requesting the draft order for direction. In section G, other information, you add:

 

Please find attached the following documents to this allocation questionnaire:

 

1A) Section G - other information

1B) List of settled cases

1C) Text of order made by Lincoln County Court

1D) Mullen -v- Hackney BC (1997) 2A11ER 906

2A) Draft Order for Directions

 

This allocation questionnaire and its attachments were sent to the defendant on xxxxxxxx

 

Post back and I'll let you know where to find the attachments.

[rpgsx3r]

No, I've not posted it yet, I plan to deliver by hand anyway, and have a couple of days yet.

 

Yes, the location of those items would be great Also, I didn't realise that I also have to send a copy of the AQ and attachments to the defendant!

[hedgey06]

Okie dokie, here you go!

 

1B's easy to get hold of. Go into the litigation section (main forum page) and enter the details needed (claim number, date, bank, sum claimed) I left out the concluded column. Use font size 8 - then the spreadsheet opens up in a new page. Just print them off - this is section 1B).

1D) http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=318&d=1175334805

 

If you PM me with your email address I'll fly 1C and 1D over to you.