Result of court case today. Recieved a suspended order subject to paying the arrears in full - suspended to end of April I beleive. The solicitor acting for beneficial finance would not accept payment, I have to send it directly to beneficial themselves. I was very disappointed with the way I was treated by the Judge. I was not allowed to present or readout my statement. The Judge allowed the solicitor for beneficial to speak freely. Howvever he would ask me a question and then interupt me before being allowed to answer. In total I was not allowed to give my defence, or certainly that is how it felt. Will have to think about how to take the payment protection policy issue forward. The one vague comment about this from the judge was that it may be for a 'chancery' case in a high court in central london - what ever this means. Many Thanks for everyones help and support comments. An especially big thanks to Ell-enn for all her hard work and support for me before the court hearing today. Nick

Dear Ell-enn, I would be grateful for the help in writing the statement. I was intending to get a mini-statement out just before going into the court building as proof of having the money to pay the arrears. If i paid today, it would be hard to show proof of having paid as it can take a few days to show up on my statement. Thanks Nick

Had requested payment details from the solicitors but they have not supplied the information. They have had approximatly 2 weeks to date to supply that information. Therefore if any costs are tried to be awarded against me I will agrue against them as I have tried to make payment. I would also be worried now about payment before the court hearing tomorrow as i will having no way of proving that the payment had been made. With the way the company has acted they are just as likely to turn up to court stating they no payment has been recieved.

Dear Ell-enn, Divorce hearing went well and a 'heads of agreement' was drawn up. This will be turned into a consent order once I am able to remove my ex-wife from the mortgages. Sent a recorded delivery letter to Lightfoots (solicitors) on 28th March requsting who to make the payment cheque out to for part payment of the arrears. Also informing them of the outcome of the divirce hearing and enclosing a copy of the defence. They still stated that they had not recieved the defence but the court confirmed that the defence was sent. I have had no response from them with regards to this letter. I have recieved from them a 'witness statement' dated 28th March, posted 31st March (on envelope) and recieved 4th April 2008. This witness statement just sets out the money owed, who they are, that a land registry search has been done but fails to mention the other interested parties. By that I mean the main mortgage company, Lightfoots stating 'In addition to the Claimant and the Defendants herein, is registered as having an interest in the property and has been served with Notice of these proceedings'. I am now going to court tomorrow afternoon, disputing the ammount of arrears owed due to the payment protection policy dispute. However now have an ace up my sleve. As of earlier this week I have managed to get together the last of the money necessary to be able to pay the arrears in full on the day if required. Is there anything that I need to do before the court hearing tomorrow. you mentioned before about a statement to take to court. Many Thanks Nick

Thanks for that. Did not even cross my mind to send payment to them. Guess I was just so tracked onto one line. Will contact their solicitors to request who to make the payment to. Many Thanks for your help and patience. Nick

Hi Ell-enn, The simply answer is that they will only take full payment over the phone. I cannot get out of them where to send a payment or who to make it payable to. I just keep getting the standard reply "You need to make the full payment by card over the phone to me. We will not accept anything else". I find this hard to come to terms with as one would have thought that they would take any money offered to them. To be honest I am frightened to send a cheque for such a large ammount through the post without knowing who to make it payable to and which of their addresses to send it to. After tomorrows divorse court hearing I will file a letter which sets out an offer of a payment plan. Nick

Hi Ell-enn, Thanks for that info. There has been no recent payments. This has been part of the problem. I have wanted to make some payment but beneficial will only accept full payment of the arrears. This has been a problem with them since the start of going into arrears with them., as stated in the defence. How can you force a company to accept part payment. I can pay a reasonable ammount of the arrears owed and will offer this at the court hearing. On the defence form under the arrears section point 10 I stated that i could not afford to pay anything above the normal payment due. However I then immediately stated the following "But hope to change after divorse hearing". Basically I did not want to commit to a payment which I might not be able to afford. The 2nd divorse financial hearing is tomorrow when I hope my ex-wife and her solicitor see sence. At the moment they are asking for a lot of money which does not exsist (and never has). Thanks Nick

When I go to the court tomorrow to check the filing of the defence. Should I ask for the court hearing to be delayed until another date as beneficial finance have not provided me with the information requested? Thanks Nick

Dear Ell-enn, I will check with the court tomorrow to see if they did forward a copy of the defence to Benificial Finance. If not I will do so. I will also resend the subject access request with a £10 postal order and photocopy of passport to them. Below is a copy of the defence information point 27 filed with the court. " IN THE ******** CLAIM NO: ********** BETWEEN Hfc bank Ltd T/a Beneficial Finance Claimant And ********* Defendant Defence Information re point 27 of the defence form I respectfully ask the court to consider the following: On the 26th August 2006 my then wife, *********, walked out on me following our holiday, taking my daughter with her. There had been no indication that this was about to happen. I then received a divorce petition on the 26th September 2006. All this hit me very hard. From then until now the divorce proceedings and relationship with my ex-wife, *******, have been very strained and drawn out. Attempts by myself to settle the divorce financially have been meet with complete refusals and unreasonable behaviour. The next court hearing to sort out the financial side of the divorce is on the 27th March 2008 at *******. All this sent the none essential finances into problems being paid, as before we were only just scraping by. Then in mid 2007, the payments to the CSA started for a large amount of my take home salary. I tried to speak to Beneficial Finance about this situation but they did not want to listen. I then started to get into arrears on the account. I tried to speak to Beneficial Finance a few times. Each time I thought an agreement had been set up only to receive a phone call one hour later to tell me that the previous person had no authority to set up the agreement and that I had to pay them the full amount owed immediately. Beneficial Finance from this point onwards would be phoning me up 3 – 4 times per day, including at work. This put me into a deep depression along with the divorce taking so long. I asked them by phone not to contact me by phone because of the effect it was having on my health but to put everything in writing. They completely ignored this request and kept up the level of phone calls until the end of January 2008 approximately. Due to my depression, I became afraid to answer the phone knowing they way they were going to treat / bully me into paying only the full amount owed. Not listening to anything I said, taking into account my situation or taking any payment unless it was for the full amount. I had tried previously t pay them what I could but it was constantly refused. I then had an accident which put me in hospital for 3 weeks (20/12/07 – 21/1/08) with a fracture of my femour. Upon coming out of hospital, housebound and on crutches, I phoned them to try to resolve the matter of the arrears. In addition, to activate the payment protection policy that was taken out with the loan. Beneficial Finance denied such a policy existed despite my having a letter from them, dated 5th December 2003, clearly stating the policy had been set-up. I then wrote them a letter of complaint dated 30th January 2008 asking that the policy be honoured. To date I have only received a letter of acknowledgement on this complaint. Further to this I received, a letter from Beneficial Finance dated 31st January 2008, stating that I had 30 days in which to pay the arrears. I was already speaking to Beneficial Finance about this and re my letter dated 30th December 2008. Next, I received a letter from their solicitors, Lightfoots dated 4th February 2008. I immediately rang Lightfoots and explained the situation. At the end of the conversation, I was left with the impression that the case had been put on hold whilst the policy situation, etc was being clarified. I then received another letter on the 19th February 2008 from Lightfoots dated 5th February 2008. I tried to seek advice as to what to do only to receive the court papers on the 23rd February 2008. Following further advise I then sent Beneficial Finance a ‘request for information’ to help with my defence. To date no reply or acknowledgement of the letter has been received. The letter was sent by first class recorded delivery. I therefore also ask the courts permission to amend my defence on receipt of such information as requested. In summary, I feel the following 1) That beneficial Finance has acted unreasonably in the handling of the arrears and any attempt to sort it out. 2) They have committed harassment by the sustained levels of telephone calls to me despite requests not to do so. The level of calls has now dropped to complete silence since my complaint and the start of the court action. 3) That the loan may have been miss-sold to us. By that, I mean what was included in the loan, i.e. the payment protection policy. Also the way it was handled to repay one of their loans 4) It is my intention, subject to the divorce outcome, to either A) Sell the house and go into rented accommodation to lower my outgoings. B) Refinance the house again to lower by outgoings. C) To rent out part of the house to improve my income. None of the following has been able to be done to date due to the complete in-cooperation of my ex-wife, ******* and her solicitors. I have attached a number of documents as referred to in this defence along with a schedule of documents. Dated: 7h March. Signed:_____________________________ **********." Then also enclosed with the defence was the following documents listed below: No. Document 1. ***** Divorce Chronology 2. Divorse financial hearing date letter re 27th March 2008 3. *******hospital stay and sickness certificates. 4. Beneficial Finance letter dated 5th December 2003. 5. ********letter of complaint to Beneficial Finance re payment protection policy dated 30th January 2008. 6. Beneficial Finance letter dated 31st January 2008. 7. Lightfoots Solicitors letter dated 4th February 2008. 8. Lightfoots Solicitors letter dated 5th February 2008. 9. ********letter to Benificial Finance re ‘Request for Information’ for supporting defence dated 26th February 2008. 10. Proof of delivery of the letter re request for information/ 11. ******payslip for February 2008. I have blanked out names with ****. Many Thanks Nick

Hi Ell-enn, Have we had any reply back yet from one of the mods. Thanks Nick

I have now recieved a reply back from Beneficial Finance via their solicitors 'Lightfoots' re the Subject Access Request. However I am not sure as to how to respond to it, as it did not provide any of the information but just how to request the information. The letter stated the following: 'We write further to recent correspondence in this matter and your information relating to the above loan account. We are instructed that you should write to the following address to request a Subject Access Request Form in order that your request can ve processed by our client: Address given We are instructed that you will need to complete the form and send it to Beneficial Finance with your passpost and fee of £10.00. We await your signed request with respect to information held by Lightfoots Solicitors. We have been advised by the court that you have attempted to file a defence online at www.possessionclaim.gov.uk/pcol but that the defence form has not been attached. Please could you therefore serve a copy of your defence on this firm in advance of the hearing on 11 April 2008.' This letter brings up several questions. I sent the unsigned subject access letter to the address they stated on the 26th February 2008 with no fee attached. This gave them 14 days to respond which they failed to do in full. How should I respond this letter to request a form to get the information and supply them with a £10 fee and my passport. Surely they cannot demand my passport from me. In respect to my defence I did look on the website stated for more information but the defence was physically handed into the court by myself. The court office informed me that I did not have to send a copy of the defence myself to Beneficial Finance or their Solicitors as the court would do this. Therefore do I now need to forward a copy of the defence to beneficial Finance solicitors or not. Sorry for the length of this post. Nick

Ell-enn The hearing date is Friday 11th April 2008. Is there anything I need to do before the hearing date re Beneficial Finance not supplying the full requested information needed for my defence. Thanks Nick

Have just recieved today a letter from Benificial Finance. Despite this being the first level of complaint re the payment protection insurance, they have issued a full and final letter. They basically state that no insurance was taken out. Further that the paragraph of the letter re the insurance was a regrettable error. That the letter was just their standard letter. The person the states that this brings to an end their internal complaint procedure and if i am not satisfied I should refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Their complaints procedure letter states that their are several levels to go through but this has not happened instead they have immediately issued a full and final letter. More interesting they seem to have answered the 'Request for Information' in the same letter with just one line at the end of a paragraph as follows: 'Having given careful consideration to all of the information available I am unable to uphold your complaint. I realise that this will come as a disappointment to you and I have summarised below the basis on which I have reached this decision. I do not feel it is pertinent to detail all communication between yourself and HFC Bank.' Later in the letter the person refers to the court case. I have also recieved a copy of the signed application ( which seems to have a change in account number right at the beginning to the account number I now have). Also a copy of the legal agreement and a copy of the default notice. How do I go about getting the rest of the information I requested and as was detailed in the 'Request for information' letter from Beneficial Finance. Do I need to inform the court before the hearing on April 11th that they have not complied with my request for information. Any help and advise gratefully recieved. P.S. Ell-enn I did not put the statement "We respectfully ask the court to suspend repossession" as I missed this on your reply which I recieved just as I was finishing my defence to take to the court - sorry.

many thanks for this information. Now just off to the court to file my defence.

Hi Thanks for the reply. I am just finishing off the defence form now totake to the courts before 4pm. Do i need to state in it that Benificial finace have not supplied the information requested for my defence or is this in a seperate form / letter for a holding defence. Thanks Nick