Have you filed a court claim yet?

Have a read of this article. It attempts to explain exactly what is charged and when. The commentary on the termination charge is below the tables showing changes in charges. How, when, and how successful ISP's will be if they attempt to pass on the termination charge is of course a different matter

Depends how early they acknowledge. If they acknowledge on the last possible day they then gain an extra 14 days, if they acknowledge earlier than 14 days they gain proportionately more time to submit a defence. The way it works is they've 14 days from the date the claim is deemed served to acknowledge or file a defence. If they acknowledge within that 14 days they then have 28 days from the date the claim was deemed served to file their defence. There's a subtle difference between saying they've 14 days from acknowledgment to file a defence and saying they've 28 days from service of the claim to file a defence if they've acknowledged the claim but when you're checking every day it's best to be certain. If you've got the notification of issue that the court sent you (I forget its title and form number) it should tell you the date that the claim is deemed served. Add 29 days (calendar not working days) to this to get the latest date for a defence if they've acknowledged (there's a reason for adding 29 days not 28 days - there's sometimes a discrepancy between the dates given by court staff and the actual limits given in law and if there's any doubt the defendant gets the benefit). If that 29th day is a weekend or bank holiday then take the next working day as the last date for them to submit a defence.

That's right.

Yes, to both parts of the question. You probably won't find a statute definition of legal tender. I'd also be very wary of website definitions that do not cite any authority, especially wikipedia If you have access to it I'd recommend a read of Halsbury's Laws of England, Volume 9(1)(Reissue) paragraph 975 (the main relevant points of which I've summarised in my post above). For copyright reasons I'm not going to cut and paste the content. Halsbury's doesn't go into great depth but it's a good starting point and is a good secondary source. I have seen something similar to the quote you've put in your post number 8 but in the context of requirement to accept legal tender once a debt has been established (possibly as in established by a judgment having been given) but I've not seen an authoritative source for that. I suspect I'd need to resort to paper sources to establish an authority, which I can't do from home. However there is one major point that distinguishes the quote in your post 8 from the OP's scenario of making a shop purchase (which is the scenario I've considered throughout). This point is that when wanting to make a purchase in a shop no debt has been established as the contract has not yet come into existence. The contract the seller would impose on the would-be buyer can incorporate a term requiring a certain form of payment (e.g. by card only) into that contract. If the buyer does not wish to enter into the contract because they object to the term specifying a form of payment the creditor/debtor relationship is not established and no debt exists as such. As there's no debt the point in post 8 is not applicable.

I'd also agree that an attempt to sneak an order through by the back door is not going to go down particularly well. I don't think it would necessarily prejudice a claim but I'd not be too surprised if the letter wasn't returned with an N244 and a request for £35. Don't get me wrong, I'd be pleased for claimants if it is successful, I just wouldn't pin any hopes on it.

Not quite sure how you meant that to come across, but there's no requirement for anyone (shop or otherwise) to accept cash if they only want to accept payment in some other form. They are at liberty to accept payment in any form that they wish (the term would form an express term of the contract with the customer) but they can insist on cash if they want, however a creditor waives his right to be paid in cash if he agrees to accept cheques or payment cards. So back to suzieblooz's original point - if Asda or Tesco or whoever decide to only accept payment by debit or credit card at some point they're within their rights to do so. In fact the Tesco filling station near me will only accept payment by card between midnight and 6 a.m.

Not sure if you want opinions or not, but if I received that I'd think you weren't prepared to go to court for whatever reason and I'd call your bluff. Senior management at Abbey will have decided the policy and if it's only to pay when court action is commenced that's what you'll need to do. I'm only too happy to be wrong, by the way;)

OK, think about what you want to say, outline the main points and something can be drafted.

Shops don't have to take cheques if they don't want to. I don't know the exact reasoning behind the decision but I'd imagine it's to do with the costs of handling and processing cheques and issues with cheques bouncing that are avoided when using plastic.

No idea, sorry. Hopefully someone with more experience in that area will be able to help.

Have a look here - scroll down to the bottom and read the section about what to do if you can't afford the court fees - do any of the criteria apply to you?

Pleased you got a result you're happy with, congrat's in advance for the wedding, enjoy the honeymoon

HSBC BANK PLC 8 CANADA SQUARE LONDON E14 5HQ

Bear in mind that the link you've posted goes to an HMRC web page and seems to relate to tax claims. Some of the info is useful although not all of the details are relevant. I've not seen any other posts about PTR's (not that there aren't any) - my suspicion is you'll get a settlement before then but if not I would suggest the evidence to be taken will be the standard CAG bundle plus an additional witness statement if the 'new' AQ directions have been issued.