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.
Aug/090
Worst Banks for Overdraft Charges
The ten banks with the worst unauthorised overdraft charges…
This week David Cameron has called for victims of “unfair” bank charges to be compensated “quickly and fairly” while Nick Clegg has agreed to table a motion calling for automatic payouts if bank charges are ruled unacceptable.
As the test case on unauthorised overdraft charges goes on, currently being heard in the House of Lords, consumer organisation Which? investigated the banks to see which ones charge customers who go over their unauthorised overdraft limit the most.
The figures below are based on an unauthorised overdraft of £30 for three days, including charges for a £10 cheque on day one, a £10 direct debit on day two and a £10 standing order on day three that the bank pays. The figures do not include interest.
Rank Bank/ Building Society Unauthorised overdraft charges Annual charges for £500 authorised overdraft *
1 NatWest/ RBS - £118 /£33
2 Alliance & Leicester - £90 / £60
3 Norwich & Peterborough Building Society - £88 / £26
4 Co-operative Bank/Smile - £80 / £54
5 First Direct - £75 / £17
6 Abbey - £70 / £28
7 Lloyds TSB - £42 / £40
8 Nationwide - £41.50 / £40
9 Cahoot - £30 / £21
10 Northern Rock - £28 / £110
* The annual cost of a £500 authorised overdraft for two weeks a month, assuming customers pay in £1,000 a month.
Source: Times Money
Aug/090
Lloyds blames huge 6 month loss on HBOS
After announcing that they had made a £4 billion loss in the first 6 months of 2009, Lloyds were quick to shift the focus of blame from themselves to HBOS whom they took over back in January. The loss was always inevitable given the scale of the takeover and Lloyds are hiding behind the fact that they are currently dealing with not only their own financial problems but HBOS’ cripling debts as well.
The bank is currently publicly owned to the tune of 43% after they went cap in hand to the Government to cover cripling debts with a £13.4bn loan. This was to cover ‘toxic loans’, 80% of which belonged to HBOS. Despite this depressing news, Lloyds are optimistic about the future suggesting that financial results will begin to improve in the near future.
The one thing to be taken from this is that HBOS were wildly irresponsible in their risk taking and were probably the most guilty of all UK’s major banks. It also serves as a reminder that we should think twice before going back to a culture of short-selling, bonuses, and self-gain risk taking.
Aug/090
HSBC and Barclays Announce Profits
It was announced today that, as expected, 2 of the big 5 UK banks have released their profit figures for the first half of 2009. The total profits for HSBC and Barclays have hit the £6m mark sparking fears of short selling and bonus culture dripping back into the banking system.
The profits are potentially a good sign for the economy as long as the temptation to jump straight back into big bonuses is resisted in the long term and, of course, both Barclays and HSBC refused help from the Government when the financial crisis was at its worst so far so they have every right to if they wish.
Barclays and HSBC both said they were pleased with their results, although they did point out that debts on a substantial scale still exist.
Jul/090
Direct Mortgages - The best on the UK market
Mortgage brokers have been dealt a major as The Times Online report that 2 thirds of the mortgages on the market are available through the lender only and the previously commonplace practice of your mortgage broker contacting the lender on your behalf to negotiate a deal could soon be dead in the water. As if this news wasn’t bad enough, many of the deals are actually at a marginally better rate - especially if the consumer visits their branch to arrange it.
The statistics behind this story reflect a gloomy forecast for mortgage brokers. Last year over 70% of mortgages were only available through a broker but clearly the credit crunch has had a huge impact on the banking system and ideas and recommendations that would otherwise have taken years to come to fruition have now become the way of life.
Another reason why banks are doing this is to get a grip on the flow of mortgages being dealt out. They also believe that they can get a better feel over whether handing a mortgage to a consumer is a good idea.
Statistics from Moneyfacts.co.uk
Story from: The Times Online
Jun/090
Getting Compensation - It Pays to Complain
In 2008, statistics showed that over 50% of people who made a claim to the FSA watchdog received compensation.
The Financial Ombudsman Service suggest that claims and Complaints on a wide range financial services companies have reached record levels with the mediating body handling over 115,000 complaints last year, and has seen problems with savings account providers increase by 100%. As further evidence of increasing bad practice, complaints about credit card issuers and loan providers increased by 200%.
Jun/090
‘Sale and Rent Back’ - Regulation Paves Way for Claims
From 1st July, companies offering to buy people’s houses and rent them back to them will be regulated after an announcement that such ‘rogue’ companies will be partially controlled by the FSA.
The Financial Services Authority will implement regulations to crack down on problems for such customers. This means that people who unfairly suffer loss of money or of their homes through these controversial schemes will be able to take their cases to the Financial Ombudsman.
Jun/090
Financial Irregularities and Credit Mis-selling
Client L came to our solicitors firm from a Claims Management Company, because she believed her loan may be unenforceable. The Lender tried to stall our investigations by refusing to accept a photocopy of the client’s Form of Authority – which is something which has not been demanded on any other file I have worked on regarding this Lender. There is also no legal obligation to provide the original, so we refused.
A loan Agreement must comply with all of the relevant ‘prescribed terms’ laid down in the 1983 regulations. A breach of any one of these terms makes the loan irretrievably unenforceable. Upon finally obtaining a copy of the agreement, we had it assessed and found several breaches.
One of those breaches concerned the PPI; which was a shock to the client, as she was not even aware the loan had any PPI! This is a reasonable basis for PPI mis-selling, and the Lender has not provided any proof that they made any efforts to ensure that the client needed any PPI, and if so that the specific one purchased met the client’s needs.
So we will continue to build a case on the basis of the PPI being mis-sold, as in proving that, the loan itself will be found to be irretrievably unenforceable, because it was included in the ‘Amount of credit’ stated on the agreement, which is a breach of one of the prescribed terms.
Client B came to our firm hoping we may be able to write off his loan. Upon conducting extensive research, we discovered that the client had several loans all taken out with the same Lender, two of which were taken out within the same year. Upon receiving copies of the agreements, it was noted that each one had a PPI policy. This provides sold grounds for the PPI having been mis-sold, as the policy has obviously not been explained to the client; if it had been, the client would have been aware he already had such a policy in place due to the original loan! This is underlined by the fact that all of the loans were with the same Lender, so the Lender themselves should have been aware that the client already had such a policy.
With supporting case law from the Financial Ombudsman (Case 71/02), we have further grounds to take this case further with regards the PPI.
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