The thing is he has owned up in his letter to us. He has not put our money in a scheme and uses 'we will not be subscribing to ...'. I have the proof in black and white. Now that I know what I know, if I sign his letter, am I helping him to break the law? What are the implications of not getting him to place our money in a scheme if say we argue the inventory at the end of the contract? Oh and Mr Shed, we moved on the 29th of April. Thanks so much for your help.

When we moved in, end of April, I could have sworn that our l/lord showed us some leaflets and said, 'the govt has introduced these new schemes and I am going to put your deposit into one of these schemes... I will be writing to you about it all.' We have now received a letter which says that my landlord is not subscribing to the "Deposit Protection Scheme" and would like to refund a proportion of our deposit every month until April. We pay our rent at the end of the month in full and he deposits a £100 a few days later. In the end he will only be holding about £500 of our deposit. My concerns 1) sounds too good to be true (for me anyway) 2) can a landlord opt out of the Deposit scheme? 3) what's the catch? If anyone understands this area, please get in touch. Yours truly

I have not heard a thing from Lloyds. I was a bit staggered by the test case, but having done some reading here I am going to proceed with the N1 next week. I will put it together and will post it on here for comment. Ta ra

Thanks BD I will send it off recorded today with the schedule of charges and see what response I get from them. I suspect as usual it will be the 2nd sod off letter and then we are off to court. Will keep you posted. Dee

Thanks for that BD. I have written a draft so far its like so... The bank has charged us numerous fees in respect of unpaid items and unauthorised borrowing since January 2007 amounting to £763.03 on the above account number. I have also attached a spreadsheet of these charges for your information. Having taken specific legal advice on the matter of such charges I would make the following points: Whilst we accept that where a breach of contract has occurred, such as in this case, the bank is entitled to recover appropriate damages to compensate it for the actual loss incurred. The parties to a contract can agree, as is the case here, that if either party breaches the contract, a certain sum of money is to be paid to the other. If this sum is termed a genuine pre-estimate of the loss as a result of the breach of contract, then it stands as agreed damages and is called liquidated damages. If the sum agreed however is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss, but a penalty, then it is not recoverable as a matter of law. The charges which the Bank has levied on us clearly fall into this latter category and that they are excessive and therefore, not recoverable in law. If the bank considers these charges to be damages, then please would you provide an analysis which demonstrates that these charges actually do reflect the bank’s costs? There are also several cases in law which prove this argument, three of which I quote below: Murray v Leisureplay (2004) Dunlop Tyre Company v New Garage & Motor Co. (1915) Bridge v Campbell Discount Co. Ltd (1962) It is also the opinion of The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) that these charges are punitive in nature and furthermore, the 1977 Unfair Terms (contracts) Act requires that all contract terms be reasonable. I don’t consider these charges to be reasonable as defined by this act. As I am sure you are aware, the OFT has already instigated a cap on credit card penalty fees and further to this, announced on 7 September 2006 that it is now to investigate overdraft charges and is highly likely that there will be a similar outcome. This statement from the OFT has far reaching legal implications for the banks who impose these charges and it is now clearer than ever that at the present levels, penalty charges have no legal validity and there can be no doubt that this statement would further strengthen any challenge to recover these fees should one be brought before The Court. Given the above, we should be obliged if you would arrange to refund the full amount of these fees, being £763.03 in total by 6 August 2007. We sincerely hope you will enter into dialogue with us in this matter as writing to you has so far not been helpful as it has taken you over 3 months to respond to us. We have not used the above account since January 2007, asked for it to be closed on 6 February 2007 and are still shocked that not only is the account still operational, but you have also assigned 2 Solicitors firms to pursue us for payment of the unlawful charges that YOU have imposed on us. As we are not using the account and have not directly spent from any money from it in the period shown we are not willing to pay the account charges incurred after 6 February 2007. If you do not comply fully within 14 days then I shall begin a claim against you for the full amount plus interest plus my costs and without further notice. Please give me some comments and pointers so that I can send this off tonight. I hear that another postal strike is looming Tuesday and Wednesday? Thank you all for your support Dee

I have been successful on one occasion. On the same account, after filing our claim, my husband and I decided to close the account. Just as we did that some charges were put on and we simply refused to pay for them. I was working full time and could not start another claim straight away. I was also anxious about not winning the first case. My husband kept writing with his views on the charges and how we were not prepared to pay for them. This was in February. End of May we got a response to the letter in February apologising for taking too long to respond and encouraging us to go to FOS while they 'investigate'. We then got letters from BCW AND SC&M threatening to take us to court in the last week. Also in the post this week was the first sod off letter. In view of the communication between my husband and Lloyds TSB, I am going to go straight onto the letter before action. It is a small amount, but how do you deal with 2 solicitors at the same time? Write to Lloyds and copy both of them in? Or address it to all 3 of them. I also need to highlight the lack of communication a) between departments and b) between Lloyds and their "solicitor" departments. I will work on a draft and post it here in a little while. Dee

Great to meet you too, didn't mind about the privacy, given the success most us shared in the court room today! It was a wonderful feeling to share with my husband with regard to leaving and knowing that we are £4,000 richer one way or the other.....

Thanks Barty. The case goes on until the money is in my account/cheque received I guess. I will keep you all informed.

Cheers, Curlyben!

Congrats! I was shocked by the costs number too, but all told we did well. Dee

Dear all You are probably waiting anxiously (jokes) well this is how it went. I checked online for any money in my account, nowt. I think I checked 4 times today. I was a bit stressed today, I must admit because I read a thread yesterday where someone had been to court on behalf of a friend and the judge had actually said that the banks were entitled to charge us etc etc... I then called [problem] at 9 sharp and talked to a curt woman who transferred me over to a Chris. I told Chris that I had not received a bundle even though I had sent a reminder via special delivery. He said 'don't worry about the bundle, just worry about your case, so just go to court and tell the judge that you haven't got an evidence bundle.' Well, I was annoyed at the time so I went along to court with a lump in my throat (stress, anger,anxiety, fear - you name it). There was a lot of us sitting in the waiting area waiting to see the Judge. As 10:30 approached, I was not sure what was going to happen because a few people walked into the waiting area and I could hear whispers of bank names as well as an occasional 10:30 to the usher. Anyhow, we were all called in and we all sat before the Judge. He called out a register and those present acknowledged. There must have been about a dozen of us altogether give or take a few. In some cases (I'd say 5) the banks sent a barrister. I have to make a point here, someone did not turn up and not only did the judge strike the case out, but Lloyds claimed court costs for £165. Another point is that the law, from what I witnessed today, is on our side because none of the barristers were making any sort of defence, they were almost there to settle quickly. In one instance though, the claimant hadn't provided sufficient evidence and the judge gave him time to go and sort himself out. With everything in place, I'd say it was almost open and shut. The only thing that caught me unawares was '64p per day since 19 February, how much is that, Mrs M?' to which I mumbled 'erm...from the top of my head, I don't know' so he said can you work that out for me please, and I popped out, did a quick calculation on my mobile. In essence (scuse me for shouting) I HAVE WON!!! Thank you all for your support in this case, not so much contributing to this thread, but by providing information and encouragement on your threads as well. The battle that remains is to get the actual money (any ideas?) and starting all the other cases. It has taken me over 7 months to do this and I had taken the view of 'if I win one I will pursue the others'. Now that I have walked most of the journey I feel relieved. And now for the punchline, the judge said "somebody knows the law" so thanks once again. The courts will also allow (maybe just today, costs for photocopying, time at £9.25 an hour travel etc) onwards and upwards Dee

Thanks Nicole! Hopefully we will have good news to report this afternoon. Dee

I might be able to see you there then. I've just got up bright and early to polish up on reading the case guidance notes that I got from Guido above. I will be calling [problem] though, just to confirm that they will be there. They are awfully quiet, its almost incredible. Maybe by piling the cases the courts are trying to crack them into stopping all this nonsense. Hope to see you there JB I'll look out for you. Dee

Just to give you an update. I am going to court on the 14th of June (day after tomorrow). I have not received an evidence bundle from Lloyds and have sent the 'send me the documents as soon as possible' letter. I have not heard a squeak from them except SC&M have written to my husband to say his loan is in arrears!? I am working out of town today, but I guess its court tomorrow. An hour has been allocated and I must admit I haven't got the hibby jibbies at all. I guess I'll be letting you know how it goes about noon tomorrow. Ta ra Dee

I sent my court bundles last week and discovered a letter which I think was the response to the LBA. I don't know if it is the same as everyone's, but here goes... (oh can't use a different colour for the text for some reason) "Dear Mr & Mrs Thank you for getting in touch with us. I am sorry you are unhappy about your account charges. Like any business, we do make a charge for some of our extra services. When customers don't have enough in their accounts to cover a payment, this always means extra work - and it has to happen very quickly. We have to agree to make the payment by setting up or increasing an overdraft, or tell customers we can't agree it. We feel it's fair to charge for this service. Of course it's only fair too, that we're completely open about any charged-for services before you take them up. That's why we take care to give every new customer the latest guide to our charges. You can also get up-to-date details about fees and borrowing rates at all our branches, through our helpline and on our website. Just as importantly, we do everything we can to help our customers avoid these charges altogether. I'm sure you'll know how easy it is to keep a running check on how much is in your account. You're free to get an up-to-date balance at any of our cash machines, over the phone, on line and by weekly text to your mobile. If you know a payment is going to take you over the limit we've agreed, you're welcome to see if we can raise it - and we can usually give you an answer straight away. Again we can do that for you by phone, on line or at any of our branches. You've mentioned the new guidelines from the OFT on credit card default charges. We don't agree with the OFT's thinking on this and we're still talking it through with them. But the important point is that the guidelines are about 'default' charges that people pay when they break an agreement with us. The fees we charge for dealing with your request to go over your agreed overdraft limit are not default charges because you haven't broken your agreement. They are our prices for the service we provide in these situations. I do hope you can see that we make our charging system as fair as possible -and why I can't agree to cancel your charges. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do. If we cannot come to an agreed solution after this I will help you refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service for independent advice. Please give me a call if it would help to talk through anything in my letter. Yours sincerely Debbie Gilbert Team Manager Customer Service Recovery Centre Andover" When I got that letter back then, it certainly didn't mean what it means to me today. Am I right in getting excited about this? Anyway, off to work now. I can scan the letter in if its any help. Dee;)