This is the arguement submitted by the barrister in a case brought by some bank or other against a Mr Mitchell in the Leeds County Court and he was defended by CMC barrister who tried to argue that the fact that the agreement did not clearly state the credit limit rendered the agreement unenforceable. Apparently Judge Langan reserved judgement yesterday but should hand it down in the next couple of weeks. Whichever way it goes the other side is very likely to appeal but if the judgement is found to be against the lender it could have very significant implications One of the prescribed terms within Schedule 6 of the Agreement Regulations is a term stating “the credit limit or the manner in which it will be determined or a statement that there is no credit limit”.It should be noted that the creditor has the option of choosing one of the three means of complying with the requirements of Schedule 6.In the present case the Claimant has most definitely not stated the credit limit within the credit agreement;it has not stated there is no credit limit. That leaves only the option of stating”the manner in which the credit limit will be determined”.We are concerned therefore with the manner of determination. It is submitted that the words” We set a credit limit and can change it.We will notify you of the limit and any changes” does not satisfy the requirements of Schedule 6. The statement is meaningless in relation to how the credit limit will be set. A determination is an ascertainment or fixing and the reference to “the manner” requires reference to some sort of methodology. The claimant will no doubt respond that there are millions of credit agreements which use similar rubric and that the use of such phraseology has become an industry standard.But that misses the point .Parliament was quite specific in its requirements and as was found in Wilson v First County Trust there is no room fortolerance or deviation from the strict requirements of Schedule 6.If this case opens up floodgates then so be it. What do the legal eagles on here think?

Same old same old,the journo didn't bother to read the judgement just rewrote previous innacurate stories

unless I am mistaken the 4k would go down as a loss in their profit and loss account so whatever profit they make will be reduced by 4k so they pay corporation tax on 4k less

Wasn't Rankine using this argument so he could 'buy' peoples debts before the MoJ cancelled his registration.

What happened to you is just unbelievable,hope you get a decent judge in your trial. My trial is in Chester not the midlands but I guess there may be judges like the one you describe any where

MBNA are trying to enforce an agreement and I have just found out the trial date is just over a month away. The "agreement" they have sent in response to pre action disclosure is an application forms with my signature on and a completely seperate set of terms and conditions which comply with the CCA( not surprising as they were probably produced last week). MBNA have actually confirmed in writing that they do not have the original agreement as it was copied electronically and destroyed some years ago. They maintain however that the original document did contain these terms and conditions on the back and have produced a witness statement from one of their employees confirming their contention is correct. Surely that can not stand up in court or do I need to get a witness statement from my girlfriend saying the terms and conditions were not on the back?

I hope you are right but if you subscribe to the view that the whole political system is no more than a sham put in place by our real masters to keep the masses from finding out the truth then the possibilities are very different

You are of course correct however the banks still maintain that they have the right to report non payers with unenforceable agreements to CRA's so lets see how things go in a test case in such a situation

Just on the point made above would it be possible for the government to retrospectively amend the Consumer Credit Act or introduce some other legislation to prevent people from challenging their agreements?

Spot on ,the banks and the government know the score and that if everyone challenged their agreements the banks would be in big trouble. If the banks ever admitted what we all know that millions of credit agreements are unenforceable they would have to write off billions of pounds on their balance sheets at a stroke and most of them would have to go bust. So they will drag their feet,pretend its not happening and spread lies and confusion so the general public who mostly believe the crap they are fed will think that unenforceability is an urban myth and so will carry on toing the line. This will go on for years and the cost of legal bills etc will pale into insignificance compared to the the implications of facing the problem directly. The banks are betting on keeping a lid on things until the economy comes out of recession and they can start the whole process again. The government is in on the act via the MoJ and FSA who have a vested interest in not controling the proliferation of CMC's who basically [problem] people by promising to eliminate their debts but have neither the resources or even the intention of delivering the service. There are literally thousands of these now and the numbers expand every day,you need no training or qualifications to register and in many cases when asked about regulation of them the MoJ and FSA both claim they are the responsibility of the other party. The result is many unhappy people and the perpetuation of the publics general perception that the possibility of having your debts wiped out is an invitation to be scammed by criminals. By the governments inaction this is now often the case which suits them and the banks just fine. It is just a great shame that other information which could prevent many people being scammed can not be posted here due to site rules.

RBS just wanted to win something,anything really so the media machine would then spin it into a 'you have to pay back all your debts and more regardless of whether its legal or not' headline. There will be plenty more of these and most people will buy it like all the other crap the media put out.

I think people need to retain a sense of perpective about having DCA 's etc chase you for money. Most people get scared because they don't understand how things work so when DCA's threaten to take your furniture etc people panic because they believe what they are told Once you undrstand that they can do nothing of the sort without going through the whole legal process then you can easily deal with them. I have several agreements I believe are unenforceable and I have paid nothing on them for more than 18 months despite receiving at least 6-8 phone calls a day and regular threatening letters at the start. I leave my phone on voicemail mode most of the time but every now and again just for a bit of amusement I speak to them and ask questions which I know they will not be able to answer which is great fun or when they ask me to answer some security questions I say 'only after you answer my security questions,after all how do I know that you are who you say you are'. I think of it as similar to keeping a tame Zombie in the garden shed like Shaun of the Dead. They have mostly given up now and moved on to more productive activities with little old ladies and disabled people. I guess I am luckier than some in that the lack of a credit rating is not of particular concern to me as I have decided that I can live happily without it but just the same knowledge about these things is power

I agree absolutely,this case was definately the banks clutching at straws to try and find some way to discourage people from challenging their agreements which means that they have already conceded that they are not going to defend successfully the majority of their agreements particularly where they were issued before April 2007 so lets not get too discouraged by this. In the case conference in May at Chester County Court all the solicitors and barristers present agreed with Judge Halbert that the general principals of unenforceable agreements were well established and accepted by everyone. When RBS asked for this case to be one of those heard in London Halbert seemed quite surprised but agreed when the borrowers solicitors had no objection. There was general amusement on the part of the legal teams representing borrowers and CMC's that RBS should be trying to argue that reporting borrowers to CRA was not enforcement by another name but they also took as vindication that the lenders had already privately conceded the principles of unenforceability. The legal teams representing the lenders had the air of people who did not have their heart or belief in what they were doing and there was a certain amount of mickey taking by the CMC legal teams in their direction. One solicitor said RBS representatives had the air of a lawyer appointed to defend a rapist they knew was guilty- its a ****ty job but someones got to do it.

Agree 100% about that

It is not correct to state that a company who does not charge any up front fees must necessarily take a slice of the settlement figure. CMC's typically work with solicitors who work on a conditional fee agreement basis (no win no fee) and when a solicitor wins a case under such an arrangement he is allowed to claim a success fee of up to 100% of his costs from the lender. The CMC usually has an arrangement with the solicitor that a proportion of this success fee is then paid by the solicitor to the CMC and this is where the CMC generates an income. In many cases the solicitor also has to pay a fee to the CMC for the privelidge of taking on the case. IMHO the CMC's charging the client up to 30% of whatever they manage to clear as a debt are completely immoral as they are still leaving the borrower with a substantial debt and there is no need to do that as if they are successful like they claim to be they will be raking in the success fees.