Aug/090
Making a claim quickly
If someone owes you money and you cannot settle things in any other way, you may decide to issue a claim through the county court. People also issue claims for other reasons, including:
- Bad workmanship
- Damage to their property
- Road traffic accidents
- Personal injury
- Goods not supplied
- Faulty goods
County courts deal with all these types of claim. You will sometimes hear people talk about the ’small claims court’. What they really mean is the special procedure for handling smaller claims in a county court.
Going to court should always be the last resort. There are now a number of other ways of sorting out complaints, disputes and legal problems without court action, including arbitration, mediation and ombudsmen schemes These are often called alternative dispute resolution (ADR) schemes.
Court rules require you to think about whether alternative dispute resolution is a better way to reach an agreement before going to court.
Some claims can be made online using the recommended Reclaim Now service by clicking here…
There are time restrictions for issuing claims. If you have delayed issuing proceedings for any reason, you may wish to seek legal advice before issuing your claim.
Jun/090
A Business League of Shame - It’s only a Matter of Time.
A mortgage endowment mis-selling complaint against Abbey was rejected six years ago and the consumer promised herself she would never buy another financial product or service from that same bank. She has been true to her word.
However, 3 years later the FSA insisted they review the case after the Abbey had initially thrown it out. They eventually gave the consumer 12,000 to cover the shortfall on her mortgage endowment as compensation.
Although this case had a happy ending after the Financial Services Authority intervened, the consumer is now more cautious than ever not least because the FSA eventually hit Abbey with an £800,000 fine for mishandling complaints and ordered them to review 50,000 cases.
Jun/090
Consumers’ Confusion over Endowment Policies
In the early to mid 80’s starting the climb on the property ladder was all the rage. It seemed everyone who could would try and take out a mortgage and would be strongly advised to take out a related endowment for long-term investment.
As per usual with these sorts of things loopholes and financial mis-selling accusations start flying around many years later and now that a precedent has been set you, the consumer, may indeed have cause to make a claim. The reason for this is because these policies were often forced upon them on the basis that when the time came, sufficient amounts would have been accumulated to pay-off their mortgages. As an additional teaser they were told that they would have an extra lump sum to play with - it was a no brainer!
20 years or so ago these endowment policies were proving fruitful to say the least as tax relief on premiums were an attraction for investors. However, this wasn’t to last and after tax relief came to an end, investment returns went downhill fast, and left an awful lot of people with the prospect of a shortfall.
If you believe you were misled on whether or not take take out an endowment policy, you CAN make a claim against the company that sold it to you. This does not necessarily need to be the company with whom you had/have the policy, but could be a financial advisor who you discussed your options with. If you want to make a claim we recommend using Gravitas Law who have plenty of experience in dealing with similar cases.
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