Hi Uncle B, Brig and everybody else who may have taken an interest in this sorry case, I hope you are all well. Well its been a lovely long time since I was last on here but today we received a letter from the Ombudsman... I quaked as I opened it but, to my great relief , it was just a letter saying that they were still dealing with our 'complaint' ... Phew! one thing the letter did say was that their final decision would be 'legally binding on the business if we accept it' Can anyone explain exactly what that will mean???/ Anyhow, long may this peace remain!!!

Thanks anyhow! Very true over 6 months since I lent himself the dosh for the car and faithfully paid back every month...course he has to as 'I know where he lives' hahahahaha

Well I heard back from my solicitor yesterday, and indeed I was wrong. We had spoken about a block payment initially but that is not what happened, and she reminded me of a conversation (and indeed email) that we had about her charges to date. I fully accept this was the case; it has been a traumatic few months and I was not sure when her letter arrived, but now I remember and am fine with it and today duly trotted off with payment. As I said, I have no problem with her work, quite the contrary in fact and am more than happy to pay. Thanks for all your help and advice, as ever CAG'ers are Tops!

thanks Uncle B... Off it goes!

should i send this as an email or letter? is it ok? or will it inflame her sensibilities (I've done all this work,which i had not anticipated and now she doesn't want to pay me: I'm going to refuse to do anymore or (worse) s*** the rest of it up) ??????? I will be posting/sending at 10 this morning so any observations or advice before then please?!

my dads wife and a lawyer guy. interesting that this will,which left everything to her, was made in 2009, just after he'd completely lost his marbles. Ok Uncle B, i shall send it tomorrow am, hoping i don't upset her. maybe its a genuine mistake, maybe she wont take it as me trying not to pay...although its v expensive for me. i don't want her to think i don't appreciate her help Any further advice to me tonight will be appreciated

really? I suppose she will charge what she wants to charge...... but with that wording (highlighted in my first post) it seemed to include all things, tho she didnt specify letters written. I think she thought at that time that it would be relatively simple... do you think she could have just forgotten or ...? after realising and doing more than she thought ...?

Okay, here a draft of the email i intend to send. As I said, I don't want to upset her as she has been good to me, but my financial situation is such as her charges are basically a whole months wages for me, which I can ill afford. One thing that worries me is, as this matter isn't quite resolved, I don't want her getting upset and refusing to carry on with the last few communiques or making a mess of it and I lose out. What do you think..... Dear ***, Thank you very much for your letter received today, and your email…as you can see I finally got my email fixed! Yes, it does seem to be a very good news letter and I have been in touch with the cemetery’s representative this morning. Not being regularly involved in legal matters, I’m a little confused, by your comment about ***'s solicitors waiting 6 months to ensure no one makes a claim on the estate; Does that mean other people or me? Is there a 6 month window where you, I or Joe Blogs could say hang on, I would like this, that or the other? After which they can’t claim? I am also a bit confused as to your extra costs, as I thought that I had paid a relevant sum upfront to cover the cost of the work. It was on the understanding that a Block fee was to be the total charge and I took the wording of your invoice ‘to include all care and conduct throughout " to mean to its conclusion? Can you please confirm that I am not mistaken in this and that no further sums are due. If this is not the case, can you please clarify the situation and provide further information regards these extra costs if any. Hoping you are well, Regards

Oh uncle B is there nothing you cant do well??? xxxxx

yes. i don't want to upset her but i thought the fee i paid up front was to cover all the work especially with the wording and all... tho' she doesn't mention letters to the other party..do you think she would say the additional is for those? i have no problem with the work, its just that i thought i had paid already and i would prefer the money to stay in my account naturally hahhahah how would i word the letter?

thank you

Hi I am currently in the middle of trying to claim some sentimental items from my late fathers estate via a local solicitor. When we started the process i asked about her fees...after picking myself up from the floor, she suggested i could pay a block amount for services ( I think, this was in April) and then produced a bill which i duly paid up front the bill details read as below..... 'professional charges in connection with advising you in regard to your fathers estate; to include discussing probate in general; to advising you on action you can take; to contacting Mrs ****; to include all attendances upon you including in person, by telephone and email; to include all care and conduct throughout.' Now the solicitor is asking for more money...was the bill i paid in April not a complete sum for the job....I refer to the... to include all.... wording doesn't that mean the whole job or am I sorely wrong. I have no problem with the work the solicitor has done and we are now close to receiving the items i asked for...they want to wait 6 months after probate before they hand anything over (why???) but as a part time worker who rakes in a cool £500 a month, only, I find the extra cost a bit steep...she may have forgotten about the block payment and I don't want to pay twice as it were...or I could just be living in cloud cuckoo land regards costs of things as my husband says (he earns a lot more than me!) anyhow I would really appreciate if a lawyer/solicitor could analyse the solicitorese and clarify this for me....

Letter from the original lady at the FOS arrived today, she said the case has now been referred to the ombudsman and enclosed a copy of her findings in a copy of a letter she originally sent us in April. Why? This woman obviously does not read anything I write and still seems unaware that I have already had confirmation of receipt of my (second to last) letter from her supervisor who told me the case was being handed to the ombudsman. I'm not indulging her with a reply its a waste of £1.55 and an hour or so of my time. By the way, my husband was very encouraged by your comments when he read them, also upset that I hadn't confided in him that I had felt so despondent and burdened from all this this year...cest la vie! He too is all for saying 'take me to court', one of his arguments being that the H no longer exist and the company now chasing is mostly owned by the taxpayer, that the H should never have lent him the money in the first place as it was obvious he couldn't afford it and countless other worthy moralistic points that would get him precisely no where in a court of law. I however am extremely wary of that route for very good reason, and hope by some divine miracle they see its a lost cause and GIVE UP...

Wow guys...thank you! Having to reiterate our argument against their claim to these people time and time again gets very time consuming, tedious and depressing and your last few comments have added something fresh to this, nearly year old, battle! I will make sure my OH sits down and reads this when he gets home from his 12 hour day. I will insist that he does. He needs to see the support from you all. He has left me pretty much to it since this nightmare found us in July last year...(from a parking fine remember) and sometimes I have been beside myself with it all, but he hasn't known, because keeping him free of worries like this helps keep our life together peaceful. Sometimes I have felt so burdened and alone...and then I log on to CAG and find friendly, helpful and informed advice! To everyone on here, I am so touched by your comments and continued support.Thank you Happyhippy, I'm amazed you had the stamina to read right through from the beginning Thank you for persevering and your comments! Silly girl, you've obviously followed this sorry tale from the sidelines, Thank you for your continuing optimism. Brig, if you're out there, I know you haven't been as active as some in this case of late because you are actually out there, literally helping people with stuff like this, but I also know that if I need advice from you, you have always come to my aid...just call me Darling! and Uncle B, as ever, you are my personal CAG star!

D'oh!!!!!! As ever Uncle B, Thank you!

just added this sentence to the first paragraph of the letter..to avoid having to copy reams of paper that they, and we, already have. As you can see the only additional piece of information they have sent, was a screen shot of basic details of Mr *** address at that time, which I enclose here. Their other enclosures were the list of alleged payments and system notes which both you, the Halifax and we are already in receipt of. No proof of any communication to this address and of having made contact with Mr Heyting has been provided..

Thank, as ever, Uncle B We are not disputing the debt, or that the H and DLC seem to have had contact with someone and payments were made... What we are asking for is proof that those contacts / payments were from my OH. After all this is England isn't it? innocent until proven guilty??? ...now just to get the b**** printer to work for a living!

P.S Should I send DLC's covering letter along with the print out of the screen shot.. .or all the info included; which both the FOS, the Halifax and we have???

It is important that whatever letter you send, does not go against the timeline. I don't understand what you mean by this Uncle B... If DLC have written to a correct address within the 6 years and they have file notes stating payments plus contact from that address, who would the payments plus contact be from, apart from your OH ? Was he living alone at the address they had written to ? The address was the correct address for the marital home, wife and three children (only one his), at the time...... I agree completely with your point made in red in the previous post, and it is our point entirely. If she was on the receiving end of debt collectors and wanted to stay in her present home without hassle she may have made the payments. The person they were communicating with could have been his wife, her brother, the milkman or her lover....or even her sister, who caused my OH to default on the mortgage in the first place by not paying the rent on the flat. (To understand the type of family she comes from, close your eyes and think Jeremy Kyle!!!) So does the letter which you drafted, the nice forceful one, 'go against the timeline' or can i send it because I really like it...( I think I'm far too nice for this sort of work )

Letter tennis...I like that!!

Cor! Thats good Uncle B...a step up I think from previous letters...much more aggressive! As to your Q's in red..... Yes the address was correct at the time. The case notes state that they rang the address and received letters and cheques from my OH from the address...however I have not seen anything like that, and it certainly wasn't provided with the SAR info.??????????? As for their knowledge of the 'divorce' this seems to be just a note on the case file as in...'he is now divorced and moved to new address.' I think it unlikely that they have spoken to my oH's ex wife since 1998 since that was the last (tenuous) mention of her in the notes. There are lots a mentions of payments; standing orders, cheques, delta card payments received etc through the notes...but DLC (and Halifax) have not provided any copies of these mandates or details of the source of the payments. They also say that my OH sent a signed authority for them to discuss the matter with his ex wife in Jan '96...again this wasn't sent to me in the SAR...surely this would be excellent proof for them...why didn't they send it??? do they have it??? They also said they were in contact with his work places.....

Hi guys, Well holiday mode well and truly over and back to work, I enclose a draft of the letter I am going to send on to the FOS... could you take a look at it and let me know what you think. Do you think we should mention my OH's toxic marriage, many separations, and his eventual nervous breakdown which took him out of the picture completely, which is in the background of all this. The ex wife had plenty of male relatives and friends around at times when my OH was not present in the marital home and our case is that they may well have been talking to someone...but who?? There was no evidence as to where the payments originated from in the SAR despite the system notes mentioning cheques and delta card payments, so they have not got (or included) those details... In reference to the case above, I enclose a copy of the extra information sent to me by Direct Legal Collections after my request for a full Subject Access Request. I specifically requested any financial details as to the source of the payments they alleged Mr *** made as well as all other information held by them; as you can see the only additional piece of information they have sent was a screen shot of basic details of Mr *** address at that time, which is enclosed. The Halifax’s ‘proof’ of contact between themselves and Mr *** during the initial 6 year period of this debt remains a list of unsubstantiated payments and some system notes, which include fundamental inaccuracies such as the name of his wife and date of divorce, and which do not constitute the required written evidence. Whereas DLC and Halifax may have been in contact with someone regarding this debt, we maintain it was not Mr *** and as such we believe that contact within the 6 years was not made and our complaint against Halifax should be upheld. So there we go, please let me know what you think and I will pop it in the post, along with an extra tree from the rainforest in the shape of copies of DLCs information, should I enclose a copy of the covering letter from DLC????? Scratch all that, the printers acting up so I don't want to stress it out unnecessarily so will it be ok to just send copy of screen shot and covering letter if required?

Ok Guys, The SAR arrived on Saturday morning and basically all they have are the case notes, with inaccuracies such as the ex wife's name and the list of alleged payments and a print out of a computer screen showing his name and address at that time. Despite stating that they had received some cheque payments, no bank details were included...maybe/probably because they dont have them. Our point is...who were they in contact with / who was making the alleged payments...they can't offer any proof that it was actually my OH..... so where do we go from here???????????? did everyone enjoy the endless coverage of Betty's jubilee??? We now have a wonderful frog and cat proof cage round our raised...VEG... (Ell-en) beds!

mmmmnnn...i remember a misspent youth of curry for breakfast too....yumyumyum

in your dreams only ellenn...hgahahhahahah maybe he has a thing about rolling around with the lettuces??!