FirstPlus

[taiko]

Dear Goldlady

 

Thanks for your response to my plea for help. I still need to find a defense that will stop any repossesion going ahead until we can sort out the PPI reclaim. I am sure my son will agree to a rescheduling of the £43k+ debt that would be left and start to pay it off as quickly as possible. It is just the loans + interest for the mis-sold PPI that sticks in his throat. He has already written to Firstplus directly,earlier in the year, about the mis-selling and thought that he had their agreement to "suspend" his repayments until the PPI issue had been sorted out between them. Obviously their promises are not worth seeking.

 

He also has a disabled wife and an 11 year old son, with OCD,who has recently started at senior school.Does anyone think that this will make a difference to any decision the court makes if they are asked to suspend any repossession order they make? The only reason he wants more time is to enable him to arrange for a fair solution to be arrived at and then to start to pay off his debts.

 

Can Ell-en be brought into this as I have read some of her posts in the past but cannot find a direct link to her today. Sorry I appear to be so useless with a computer and at navigating around the site. I am still very new to all this and absorbing knowledge at my age is very slow and time consuming

 

Hope you can assist me further.

 

Regards

 

Taiko

[Ell-enn]

Hi Taiko - how can I help?

[taiko]

Dear Ell-enn

 

I want to find a legal defense that will stop Eversheds(acting on behalf of Firstplus) from obtaining a Possession Order on my son's house until we can reach agreement with Firstplus on the mis-sold PPI they have attached to his original advance. When that happens we intend to clear the outstanding loan, hopefully dealing with a less devious lender.I am still trying to secure funding so that he can clear the Firstplus loan debt and get on with his life. As you can see from the other posts I have made he has a disabled wife and a young son in his home.The effect of any form of repossession on them would be devastating.

 

Please can you suggest a letter or a reference to a legal precedent that we can use to ask the court to take into consideration when they make a judgement.

 

Thanks

 

Taiko

[taiko]

Dear Goldlady

 

When you ran the figures I supplied through the spreadsheet did you include refunds of the interest Firstplus have taken with respect to the loan thay made for the PPI premium and did the figures also include statutory interest on that interest? I understand from other posters that these monies can be claimed in addition to the loan provided for the mis-sold PPI . Hope you can advise

 

Regards

 

Taiko

[Goldlady]

Hi Taiko, no I didn't - the first spreadsheet shows the running of the loan including the PPI and the second shows the net amount borrowed and how much should now be owing if the PPI had never existed. It is not easy to work out how much of the rebates actually related to the PPI, as obviously they would have refunded some interest for early settlement. Which is why I have not included them in the second calculation at all, merely increased the loan balance by the actual extra amount he borrowed.

 

When we reclaimed my friends' PPI from FP they got a refund by cheque for around 4k and the remainder was credited to the account, reducing the balance.

 

My thought is that you can say to the court that the PPI has inflated the loan balance by £20k approximately, which simplifies things for the court, however it does not tell you how much to reclaim, and therefore does not give a figure to work out statutory interest on.

 

Is there anywhere on the agreements where the payment is split between the PPI and the capital? If you can give me those two figures I will try and get a better calculation.

[Ell-enn]

Hi Taiko, have you received an N11M from the court - if so when is the hearing?

 

Ell-enn

[taiko]

Dear Ell-enn

 

Yes we have an N11M. The hearing date is set for Wednesday the 8th October 2008.I would like to get any defense we decide on into the court as soon as we can reasonably manage to.

 

Regards

 

Taiko

[Ell-enn]

Hi there, I understand you want to get the PPI situation brought to the attention of the court, but unfortunately the court will only be concerned with the arrears on the mortgage. I think the PPI claim will have to be brought as a separate action once you have safeguarded the roof over their heads. However, there is nothing to stop you mentioning it in the defence, and if you have any documents relating to it then these can be included.

 

I need some information before I can suggest a defence:

 

How much are the arrears?

What can your son afford to pay each month towards the arrears in addition to the normal monthly payment

Is there documentary evidence of your daughter in law's disability i.e. benefit payments?

 

Kind Regards

 

Ell-enn

[taiko]

Hi Ell-enn

 

The arrears claimed to the 26 August 2008 are currently £5596.05. The last payment to Firstplus was made on 15/01/2008. I am prepared to raise this money and pay off the arrears but I do not want further PPI interest and the whole PPI issue to put my son back in this situation in say a years time.I will help him fight for its removal and a refund of the money taken from him. I know this will take time, so my main concern at this moment is to prevent him losing his home to these sharks.

 

The Particulars of Claim also asks the court to order that the defendants (a) give the claimant possession of the premises and (b) pay to the claimant the total amount outstanding under the mortgage. (£67192.40,including £363.62 solicitors costs).Do you interpret that as an either/or situation or are Eversheds just covering all the bases?

 

My daughter in law had extensive surgery following an aneurism some years ago.This means that she has defective sight in one eye,cannot work and has been denied a driving licence.She has never claimed any disability benefits and so any evidence of her disability would have to be medical in nature.

 

Hope this helps

 

Regards

 

Taiko

[Ell-enn]

Hi, if there are no arrears there can be no case for possession and if they did not cancel the hearing the judge would throw it out. So, if the arrears were cleared before the hearing the lender could not ask for possession. This would mean that you could then start to build your case re the PPI without the fear of possession.

 

Ell-enn

[taiko]

Hi Ell-enn

 

Thanks for responding so quickly.Will ponder how to achieve securing funding for arrears payment. Will need to get back to you tomorrow to get advice on building a good case to get the PPI refunded.

 

Regards

 

Taiko

[finlander]

dhi, just a question but is there no way you can counter claim in a possesion hearing?

[taiko]

Yes, I thought that one form of defense in explaining why you had not paid the total amount claimed,in a financial dispute, was that you had a counterclaim of some size which needed agreement to be reached on before you paid. Perhaps someone with greater legal knowledge can comment?

 

If Firstplus claim that £67k is owed and my son counterclaims for the £20k+ in PPI and interest then surely the judge could determine that as Firstplus are now demanding full repayment of the loans and PPI, then the lower (non disputed) loans only figure might be used in an attempt to reach agreement.Or am I being naive and simplistic in my approach?

 

Taiko

[Goldlady]

I think that is right Taiko. Sorry I haven't done the other sums for you yet btw - I have been up to my eyes with work and have to be in court in just over an hour. Fortunately on this occasion I am the claimant:D

 

Will hopefully get a chance tonight depending on whether I am drowning my sorrows or celebrating:eek:

[taiko]

Dear Goldlady

 

Thanks for the update; your continued assistance (and that of the others) is much appreciated. I do understand that you have other challenges to face as well as the valuable help you have given me. Looking forward to receiving more spreadsheet data when you can look at it.

 

 

regards

 

Taiko

[taiko]

Dear Goldlady

 

I hope your recent court appearence went really well for you and that you have been celebrating. Do you think you might be in a position to look at my son's PPI calcs soon? My concern at the moment is finding out approx. figures to enable me to decide on what my next move can be.The court appearence is now only a week away.

 

 

Best regards

 

Taiko

[Goldlady]

Hi Taiko, the court hearing went extremely well thanks to an excellent barrister on my side - which is why I want to be one myself!!!

 

I have had a go with the figures and will definitely get it sorted in the morning for you. Had a bit of a rough weekend as our five week old kittens all died within 24 hours and I discovered that crying a lot helps to clear sinus headaches. Turns out the mother had stopped producing milk but we had no idea until we went to the PDSA Sunday evening.

[Goldlady]

Hi again.

 

I have worked out that he has actually paid £4601.64 of PPI if you split the payments between PPI and Loan. What I don't know is how much of the 'rebates' of 4929.53 and 2009.37 which were credited to the loan account when it was refinanced related to the PPI and how much to the loan interest. But as they weren't actually refunded to him, just to the loan balance I am still minded to keep them out of the calculation.

 

I will email you the spreadsheet. My thought is to use the original simple calculation which shows that had the PPI not been attached the account the balance should now be £43k and then also state that payments of PPI to date amount to £4601.64. Statutory interest on those is £904.99 up to today.

 

So you either have a claim for the £4601 plus interest to be refunded, or you ask for all the PPI to be refunded to the loan account which would leave an outstanding balance of £43k. Obviously if you reclaimed the £4601 the loan balance would go above £43k.

 

I hope this makes some sense

[Goldlady]

Can you PM your email address, or send me an email as I can't find it. Ta.

[taiko]

Hi Again

 

I've been too ill until now to do any more for my son.Sorry if you thought I had lost interest. Firstplus have rejected his demand to have the PPI cancelled and he now has a new date in court for Feb 4th. Can anyone advise on how we can delay ajudgement in order to gain more time to fight these unspeakable people? Please help someone I am at my wits end

 

Kind regards

 

Taiko

[Goldlady]

Hi, still here, and sorry to hear you have been ill.

 

Not sure how far we got before as it was a long time ago, but i will still have all the calculations and think you can use this as an offset against the arrears.

[taiko]

Dear Goldlady

 

Thanks for your speedy response.I have been thinking how I can gain more time to sort out a robust defence against the Passession Order i.e by having the court hearing put back.Can anyone assist by advising how this might be done (Ell-en perhaps?).

 

One thought I did have was to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's office because Firstplus have not given my son proper documents and a "suspect" tape of telephone conversations (clicks and silences between speech) in response to his SAR. If we do this and also start a counterclaim in our local court for the reclaiming of the PPI do you think that the judge may take this into consideration?Also if we inform Eversheds of our intentions do you think they will react or perhaps they may try to push their action through before we can get other proceedings underway?

 

I am still very unsure on what I can do to proceed and feel that my lack of knowledge is possibly not helping my son.Thanks for your assistance so fer

 

Kind regards

 

Taiko

[taiko]

Dear Goldlady

 

I am in dire need of assistance now as the court Possession Proceedings for my sons'house are due to take place on the 4th February 2009 and my son has just received a copy of the witness statement from Eversheds, acting on behalf of Firstplus.There are a number of items on their claim form that I do not understand and would be very grateful if you or some other knowledgeable person from the CAG could help me make sense of them. To date ,because of my ill health, my son has not submitted a defense document and assistance with putting one together before the court hearing would be appreciated.I am so sorry that I have left it so late to beg for help.

 

The items I am confused about relate to a copy of the "charges register" that show numbered entries,i.e 1-4, beginning on the 22/12/2003 (no indication of proprietor), followed by one dated 7/11/2007 (proprietor BOS (Halifax Divn),then a charge(again no proprietor) but dated 21/4/2004 and a further entry also dated 21/4/2004 naming Firstplus Financial Group as the proprietor. Can this mean that the charges claimed to have been made in 2004 have in fact been somehow added after that made in 2007.

 

Prior to the BOS making an advance to him in 2007 they claimed to have checked the Land Register and told my son that no charges other than the 2003 one and their own were on the register.The advance was in fact intended to clear the outstanding amount under the 2003 charge

 

Eversheds have included with their witness statementa copy of the terms and conditions of the credit agreement my son signed in 2004 with Firstplus and not a copy of the document he signed consolidating his borrowings in 2006.The 2004 document is one regulated by the CCA 1974 whilst the 2006 one does not appear to be so.Also in their original submission to the court in August 2008 Eversheds claimed that the "mortgage" on the property they were referring to was not covered by the 1974 Act.

 

Are they confused,not telling the truth or is it me being stupid, having no knowledge of these things.

 

If I could afford to do so I would engage a solicitor on his behalf but cannot do so. I am at my wits end and can only ask for someone to assist ,because I believe if he loses his home his family might break up.

 

Kind regards(please help if you can)

 

Taiko

[Ell-enn]

Hi there, I can assist you with writing a defence statement, but I need to know what your son is able to pay i.e. is he able to offer an amoutn each month towards the arrears on top of the normal monthly payment?

 

You did state in a previous post that you may be able to clear the arrears for your son and therefore ensure that FP could not ask for possession - is this still possible?

 

Ell-enn

[taiko]

Hello Ell-enn

 

Thanks for responding so quickly.The problem of payment and additional amounts to clear arrears is quite complicated.I will try to explain how my son has arrived at this situation which appears to have been made worse by his attempts to get rid of FP once and for all.

 

In 1997 my son bought his house with a mortgage for 100% of its value. In 2003 he remortgaged up to the current value at the time to fully fund home improvements and to buy a car.

 

During 2004 ,needing more money,he approached Norton Finance who declined to give him a loan ( he asked for £35k) but introduced him to Firstplus. Firstplus offerred him a loan of £27k + PPI of £6600. I believe that this PPI was mis-sold and when he extended his loan in 2006 Firstplus advanced him a further £53K + PPI of £13000. Part of the £53k loan was used by Firstplus to pay off his original loan(plus the outstanding PPI loan).

 

He made payments to both his mortgage with BOS and Firstplus until Nov 2007 when he extended his BOS mortgage to the maximum value of his home. This enabled him to have £50k to pay off the Firstplus loan(or so he had calculated) but then found that when he asked FP for a settlement figure they required £63k to clear his account. In January 2008 ,after finding CAG and reading about PPI, he realised that he had been mis-sold the PPI on both the loans from FP and I wrote letters on his behalf challenging the mis-selling and issued an SAR. Because he felt so strongly he informed FP that the account was in dispute and that until the issue of the PPI was resolved he was suspending payments. There are doubts that FP complied fully with the SAR (dodgy tape and "screen shots") and then in Nov 2008 Eversheds appeared on the scene.

 

Goldlady has calculated that since he took out a loan most of the repayments appear to have gone towards paying for PPI and interest and that the capital sum has reduced by a small amount.

 

If he can get the PPI and any doubtfull interest payments removed he believes he can pay off the full amount of his indebtedness to FP. There may also be a case for looking at whether Norton Finance acted in any way against guidelines issued by the OFT (i believe they did).

 

Having explained all this I can pay off his current arrears but because of the way he has set things up he is going to to be overstretched , unable to continue to pay both FP and BOS and so will be in the same situation in a few months time.

 

Does this make any sense to you,hope you can assist

 

Best regards

 

Taiko