Gaz - Many Apologies - my stayed comment relates to a personal account, however, in terms of procedure (and abuse thereof) this has not been countered by either the DJ (in fact the opposite as per his supportive comments) nor the Defendant in my case.

I have a claim stayed for £22.5K - this is 5 separate claims. The stay was done on the day I was due at court! The DJ thought it was a good idea and had no problem with this at all! I can't tell you what to do yourself and would advise that you look into it further - but it is working for me - so far. The only problem is that you will have to submit all documentation twice (or in my case 5 times - so not exactly saving the rainforests). Good Luck.

Chorley County Court ALL CLAIMS STAYED. g

Hi all, Latest update: Hearing was scheduled for last Thursday (9th August) but court was vacated because Cobblers sent the OFT stay letter the day before so the claim is STAYED (what a surprise). My wife talked to the Judge (I was away on business) who said he had stayed loads of claims in the past two weeks. My opinion: The OFT has been knobbled. g

Lisa, Download then paste your charges into this spreadsheet (it has an 8% sheet which will automatically calculate the interest based on the current date. To try it out put a charge (incl. date of charge ) in the "Charges and Interest" sheet then click on the "8% Interest sheet" and you will see it has calculated the interest at 8% from the date of the charge you eneterd on the first sheet. Simply fill in the "Charges and interest" sheet and the 8% sheet automatically updates. Then print out the 8% sheet and also add it to your MCOL. As the days roll by you can open this spreadsheet and it will automatically update the 8% up to the current date. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/Spreadsheets/England/Complex-bank-charges-calc.xls Hope this helps. g

Fendy, WELL DONE AND CONGRATS FOR STAYING THE PACE!!! Hedgey, apols for gatecrashing but best wishes good luck to you also!! I have added an "I want a refund" avatar in honour of you both. g

Looks like your efforts are working! Following request for statements from 1992 - 2003 the 40 days duly passed so rang Nat West and was told I would have the info within 10 days and the 10 days duly passed. Sent "court order or else" letter last Monday and got all statements through Last Thursday with a nice letter saying they hope I have all that I asked for! Result. Good Luck. G

Yep, that's the one. Steve has kindly given you the link to the letter, and if you follow the associated step by step instructions you'll be fine. If there's anything you are unsure of then don't be afraid to ask - there is a fantastic collection of people here who will chip in to help you all the way. Don't forget - you have a right to these charges back. Good luck. g

Ok Fiona, It's a bit laboriuos but what you need to do is go through your statements and put all the charges that appear in order in your spreadsheet. e.g. date in col B, detail of penalty as per examples below in col C and amount in col D). A running total will appear in col E. Examples of penalties are: Unpaid D/D Fee Card Misuse Fee Unarranged Borrow Fee Cheque Return Fee Unpaid R/P Fee When you got charged interest (typically at the end of each month) put all these in the separate list cols G, H & I). When all this is done you will have a totalised charge plus interest at the top of the sheet - this is what you want back from the bank. Hope this helps. g

Steve, Thanks. I have already sent back the AQ and on this form it asks if you intend to submit further applications. I have said no to this so if I put another N244 in (i.e. application to strike out defence) the court may get a bit shirty. Or is this normal? Cheers, g

Apologies. I started a new thread based upon topic and not claim. I'll resist the temptation in future. g

Steve, It's a bit complicated, I originally split my cliam into 5 separate actions. On each action I issued a CPR18 request for information as follows. Court: xxx County Court Claim Number; xxx Claimant: xxx Defendant: National Westminster Bank PLC CLAIMANT REQUEST FOR INFORMATION / CLARIFICATION Date of Issue: xxx This request for information is made under CPR rules part 18. REQUEST The schedule of charges attached to the particulars of claim do not reflect the actual costs incurred by the defendant. Please supply the actual costs incurred by the defendant in relation to each charge or type of charge. Please verify your response with a CPR 22 Statement of Truth. Please respond within 7days from the date of this request. This was done for all claims in April. A copy was also sent to court. Each claim was under the 5K limit so I am not sure if CPR18 can be applied as these are 'small claims track'. I have applied to combine these into one claim - Hearing date set for August (including slight amendment of POC). Is it worth writing to the court asking for strike out? Cheers, G

Thanks Parky. I'll tone it down a bit and add my email address. G

I have a hearing coming up in August (see http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/natwest-bank/83455-garforth-gnatwest-22264-s32-4.html#post858784) for more info. As this is several weeks away plus several more to an actual court date I consider that it would be fair and reasonable on my part if I made Gnatwest an offer to settle in order to save additional time and costs on all sides. I have drafted the following to cobblers. Dear Sirs, xxx v National Westminster Bank PLC Claim number xxx With regards to the above claim and in a further attempt to resolve this matter expediently thereby avoiding further time and cost to your client, ourselves and the court we respectfully propose an offer of settlement as follows. To date my claim stands thus. Unlawful Charges £xxx Unlawful Interest Charges £xxx 8% Interest as per s69 of the county courts act £xxx Court Costs (NI filing) £xxx Application Fee (N244 filing) £xxx AQ Fee £xxx Total £xxx In light of the hearing date of xxx it is envisaged that a court date may well be some months later and this length of time will only add to your client’s potential costs in terms of fees, additional interest incurred plus our additional costs. On the basis that your client has:- a) failed to respond to any correspondence regarding repayment of unlawful charges from xxx to xxx b) settled all claims of a similar nature out of court c) made an offer to me on xxx which I believe was made without the knowledge that litigation had already commenced between us. d) failed to answer my request for information as per CPR18 e) failed to respond to my letters regarding s32(a),(b) & © Limitation Act 1980 We hereby propose to settle now and unconditionally for the non-negotiable sum of £ xxx. Should your client wish to settle our claims in full, then please forward the amount above without condition and we will inform the court that the claim is settled. Should your client refuse this offer then please tell us and we will proceed with this matter without further offer and to its conclusion, whenever that may be. With regards to charges levied unlawfully by your client we enclose the schedule of charges updated to reflect the interest to date. We look forward to receiving your reply in due course. Yours faithfully Any thoughts? Should this be "Without Predjudice" - I am thinking not as I would like the court to see that I continue to attempt to resolve the matter. Any comments would be greatly appreciated. g

Steven, Many thanks - this is very helpful. Have you (or anyone for that matter) incorporated anything like this into their witness statement? It looks mighty appropriate to do so. G

Fendy, Cobblers and Gnatwest can go and boil their heads! Talk about abuse of process - if you have time check out this win, the judge struck out the defendants case based on abuse of process. BBC NEWS | Business | Banks branded 'vexatious defendants' Hope this is useful. All the best. Gr4th

Jhamb, You need to include your statement of evidence as part of your court bundle (there are four essential sections to it). Follow this link and all will be revealed. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=130&Itemid=78 g

Fendy, Interesting link! I couldn't find much on it though - because post 2000 it seems that the Gnatwest web site changes to a back end server model and although the crawler copies the site the links refer to back end processes which are no longer there (that's why most of the pages do not work past the index page). Back to the point - http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/lloyds-bank/81799-issues-raised-llloyds-bank.html#post727697 this link is from the Lloyds website referring to "Cloaking of Charges", fee for a service argument and the need to refer to T's & C's. I agree that the T's & C's and their discredit are now an essential part of the witness statement. This is impotant (to me ) as I am going back more than 6 years and the "cloaking" argument is further ammunition in defeating the Limitation Act 1980. Hope this helps and thanks for the Fendy v Natwest - superb reading!! G

bump. anyone?

Sansho, You can amend your POC to include s32 wording - you will need to fill in an N244 (this will also cost £35) - I'm not sure whether you can do this post AQ - you must be able to?. I also have a hearing coming up and I also have s32 issues - so you are not on your own Good Luck G

Quite right too!! It's only the same as bowing to Mecca but with entirely different sentiments! :-D g

Looks like the wheels of justice grind slower than I thought. Phoned court on Friday and it seems that the N244 has been looked at but the Judge wants a hearing. Does anyone know if there are any steps that I can take to prepare for this or put extra pressure on Cobblers - i.e. can I write to Cobblers & Court beforehand asking for disclosure to be presented at the hearing or will this just be confined to the application details? I am thinking that at the very least I need to fully familiarise the arguments thoroughly in case I get a grilling from either the Judge or cobblers (i.e. thereby avoiding a possible "Birmingham"). I haven't had any correspondance from court yet but anticipating something soon. The application was to: 1. combine the five claims into one 2. add my spouse since this was a joint account 3. revise the POC to include s32 limitation wording I have also sent the AQ (New Strategy Version) stating "Fast Track" as the claim total excluding 8% is just over £15K. Any thoughts and help would be very much appreciated. G

Parky, I woke up this morning really early and immediately started thinking of your fantastic win! So in honour of your victory, I have this morning waved my private parts in the general direction of my nearest branch. I am also considering going the extra mile and swinging my pants at it later today. WELL DONE AGAIN!!!!!! G

Top result Parky! As for me and my 23K - I have sent the N244 to combine my 5 claims into 1 - Judge wants a hearing about it all I think (I phoned the court) - so I'm waiting for the post. CONGRATULATIONS! G

Thanks Todge, Brown has successively tried to shaft the public in every way possible since he became the 'prudent' chancellor. His smash and grab on pensions plus a a whole range of give with one hand but take more behind your back with the other (including IR35) is absolutely appaling conduct. Only an idiot could muck up the economy with the extra cash he has robbed from the pension pots. Now why invest in pensions when it could all be humped by some future chancellor short of cash? The only good thing he did was relinquish interest rate control - but one swallow does not make a summer. In my opinion he should be gaoled for the harm he has done to this country - ironic he is to become the next PM. Rant over - I feel a lot better now! Cheers.