orfoster vs Natwest

[orfoster]

I have had NatWest defence today. What do people think?

 

Oh and the CPR18.

 

1. This Defence is filed and served without prejudice to the defendants case that the Particulars of claim do not disclose reasonable grounds for bringing a claim against the claimant to recover the bank charges (and interest thereon) referred to in the particulars of claim or any other sum(s). In the event that the claimant does not properly particularise his claim then the defendant will apply to strike out the claim and/or for summary judgment in respect of the same.

 

2. No admissions are made as to what charges have been debited to the claimants bank account.

 

3. In realtion to the allegation that the contractual provisions pursuant to which the charges have been applied are unenforceable by virtue of the unfair contract terms act 1977 and/or undair contract terms in consumer regulations 1999 and/or common law, the claimant is required to identify.

3.1 (a) the sections of the unfair contract terms act 1977.

(b) the regulations of the unfair contract terms in consumer regulations 1999 and © the principles of common law relied upon by the claimant alleging that the contractual provisions reffered to are unenforceable; and

3.2 the contractual provisions that the claimant allege are invalid by reference to UCTA 1977 and/or the regulations.

Until such time as these sections are identified the defendant cannot (save as appears below) plead to the allegation referred to in paragraph 3 above. The defendant therefore reserves the right to plead further to the allegation once (and if) the claimant identifies the relevant contractual information.

 

4. To assist the claimant with the proper particularisation of his claim, the defendant serves with his defence a request made pursuant to CPR Part18. If the claimant fails to provide the particulars requested in the time stipulated and/or the defects with the claim (referred to in paragraph 1 above) remain then the defendant will apply to the court for (among other things) an order striking out the claim.

 

5. Pending the proper particularisation of the claims the defendant is unable to plead to the claimants claims beyond at this stage denying that the defendant is liable to the claimant as alleged in the claim or at all. The defendant reserves its right to amend this defence to plead further to the claimants claim once the claimant properly particularises the same.

 

6. Save as hereinbefore appears the defendant joins issue with the claimant on his claim and denies that it is liable to the claimant as alleged or at all.

 

I will post a copy of the whole A4 page of particulars below when i find it on the PC, what do people think of that. Hmmm hope i haven't gone wrong.

[orfoster]

This is what i put in with the court claim.

Mr orfoster -v- National Westminster Bank PLC

1.The Claimant has an account, Account Number ******** Sort Code ****** with the Defendant which was opened on or around 11th November 2005

 

 

2. During the period in which the Account has been operating the Defendant debited numerous charges to the Account in respect of purported breaches of contract on the part of the Claimant and also charged interest on the charges once applied. The Claimant understands that the Defendant contends that the charges were debited in accordance with the terms of the contract between itself and the Claimant.

3. A list of the charges applied is attached to these particulars of claim.

 

4. The Claimant contends that:

a) The charges debited to the Account are punitive in nature; are not a genuine pre-estimate of cost incurred by the Defendant; exceed any alleged actual loss to the Defendant in respect of any breaches of contract on the part of the Claimant; and are not intended to represent or related to any alleged actual loss, but instead unduly enrich the Defendant which exercises the contractual term in respect of such charges with a view to profit.

b) The contractual provision that permits the Defendant to levy such charges is unenforceable by virtue of the Unfair Contract Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations (1999), the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and the common law.

5. Accordingly the Claimant claims:

 

a) the return of the amounts debited in respect of charges in the sum of £1202.33 and any interest charged thereon;

b) Court costs;

c) the Claimant claims interest at the contractual rate of 29.69% per annum, from the date of each transaction to 2nd October 2006, which is £217.60, as set out in the attached list of charges. The Claimant further claims interest, on the resulting total of £1419.93, at the same rate up to the date of judgement or earlier payment, at a daily rate of £0.93 per day. The Claimant believes this rate to be justified under the principle of mutuality and reciprocity, and is based on the Defendants interest rate that would be applied under the terms of the above mentioned account.

Should the court find that this interest rate is not applicable, then in the alternative the Claimant claims interest pursuant to Section 69 of the County Court Act 1984 at the rate of 8% per annum calculated from the date of each transaction to 2nd October 2006, which is £58.63 and also interest at the same rate until date of judgement or earlier payment at a daily rate of £0.25.

I believe that the facts in the particulars of this claim are true.

Full Name: orfoster

Signed _________________________________ (claimant)

[GaryH]

I'm not familiar with Natwest's standard defence, so I'm probably not best placed to comment, but to me it looks like the standard rubbish. As far as I'm concerned, and as long as you have included a shedule, that claim is perfectly well particularised. I don't know what more they want to be honest. The specific schedules and sections of the statutes do not have to be identified in the POC's I'm sure. All the cases and relevant parts of the statutes will be provided upon the directions of the court at a later date.

 

Like I said though, it will pay to get someone who knows Cobbots defence better to comment.

[orfoster]

Hey,

 

Many thanks for the reply. Yeh it does look alot like standard rubbish. Yeh i included the schedule. Not too sure what they want. Allocation questionaire came in today. I didn't need to get this far last time with my other claim so need to read up on what to send back. Anyone have any suggestions??

 

Help much apprieciated.

[orfoster]

Ok, i have found out i need to send something like this;

I Acknowledge the receipt of the defence posted on behalf of National Westminster Bank PLC.

I am not prepared at this stage to answer the CPR Part 18 Request. I anticipate that the claim will be allocated to the small claims track and would not then expect to have to deal with a Part 18 request since these are specifically excluded under Part 27 unless the court specifically orders me to do so of its own initiative. As I understand the above I shall not be replying to this request unless asked to do so by the courts and your deadline of the 15th November for this request will not be met.

 

Furthermore I consider that the CPR part 18 request is intimidatory and I intend to bring the intimidation to the notice of the court. However, for clarity, I confirm the charges I am claiming were applied to the following account:

Account Name: Mr orfoster

Account number: *******

Sort Code: ******

Please also find enclosed a breakdown of all charges I am claiming. I will however point out that a copy of this breakdown has been sent to your client on two occasions and was filed with the N1 when I approached the courts to make this claim.

 

 

Yours Faithfully

Mr orfoster

[GaryH]

Heres a suggestion for the AQ section G - other information. I wrote it initially as a response to Lloyds defence though (which is simular), so you'll probably have to edit to suit;

 

 

ALLOCATION QUESTIONNAIRE N149 / N150

 

 

 

Section G / J Other information

 

The defendant in its defence contends that this claim is not suitably particularised and the statement of claim is “embarrassing” and shows no reasonable grounds for the claim to be brought. The Claimant disagrees with this contention entirely. The claims particulars clearly state the statutory and common law provisions on which this claim relies, and the claimant will of course elaborate upon the claim particulars at such time as is required upon the direction of the court. Further, contrary to the contention of the defendant, the relevant numbers of the account in question were clearly identified in the claimant’s particulars of claim, and a full schedule of the charges which form the sum claimed from the defendant was sent to Northampton bulk court on the day of issue for inclusion alongside the claims particulars. Additionally, the defendant was served with this information on two occasions previously within a 28 day period allowed by the claimant to attempt to resolve the issue prior to the commencement of this litigation. For the sake of expediency, I have attached another copy of the schedule to this allocation questionnaire.

 

As is known to the defendant, I am a litigant in person in this case. It is respectfully submitted that the contentions of the defendant are highly likely to be an attempt to distress and intimidate, rather than presenting any valid or reasonable objections to the clarity of the Particulars of claim.

 

Follow the above with the guide notes from the templates library, ie, the request for allocation to the small claims track and for an order of standard disclosure.

 

Oh, and obviously change the bit that says about Northampton court - that's only if you filed using MCOL

[GaryH]

Remember to attach a schedule, and send a copy of the AQ and attachments to the sols too.

[orfoster]

One of my friends has just finished a claim against NatWest Mastercard. On Friday she had a letter from the Registry Trust with a query on it.

Unable to register, reasons for failure. We are unable to register a limited company.

 

I don't understand why she has one of these as i never had one, she claimed through MCOL. Does anyone know what she needs to do?? It says she needs to comment in box 3.

[gizmo111]

Did she have a judgement - cos thats what the RT does - registers judgements - bizarre.

[orfoster]

lol yes thats what it is. "registration type = C Cancellation" I have never had one of these and don't really know why shes had one?

[orfoster]

Ah, they sent her the money back and obviously put in "no admission etc" She then went on MCOL and said request judgment by admission. So how does she need to respond to this query?

[orfoster]

NatWest/Cobbetts have replied with their allocation questionaire. They say:

Section G

Case management directions cannot be proposed until the claimant serves a reply to the request for further information which was due on the 15th November 2006. In the light of this, the defendant may amend its defence of apply to strike out

 

When i filed my AQ i forgot to send Cobbetts a copy as well. I did respond to the CPR18 as you can see on previous posts. Guess i just wait now.

[Deller]

The AQ's will be presented to the district judge to make a decision. You should be fairly close now.

[kateandpete]

Did you send your CPR 18 refusal to both the court and Cobbetts? Do you have proof?

If you do then great, they are getting confused!

You'll get an allocation pretty soon. I asked for standard disclosure and got allocated to the fast track. If this happens to you you then need to formally answer the part 18 request. There is a template on my thread (in the successes subforum)

[orfoster]

Hey, thanks for the replies. Yes i sent it to both of them but no i don't have proof of it. I have the copy of the letter on my computer still though. Thanks for letting me know, i'll keep that in mind. We shall see where it goes. None of my claims have had to go this far before.

[orfoster]

Ok Cobbetts have sent me an offer for £850 sent on the same day they filed their AQ.

 

So i am declining it as follows, can someone clarify if i have done this response correctly.

 

Response to settlement offer.

 

Dear Cobblers

Yours Ref: PZC/RR1362-800

Thank you for your letter dated 20th November 2006

I respectfully decline your offer of settlement and request, once again, that you return to me all charges imposed on this account, totalling £1202.33 plus the interest which is included in the particulars of my claim and is based on a contractual rate @ 29.69% i believie this rate to be justified under the principle of mutuality and reciprocity, and is based on the Defendants interest rate that would be applied under the terms of the above mentioned account.

 

I will only accept settlement of the full amount as calcualted above and shown in the particulars of my claim.

 

I trust this clarifies my position.

 

 

Yours faithfully orfoster

 

What does everyone think?

[GaryH]

Good job. Says what it needs to without being abrasive, which is the trap alot of people fall into when corresponding with the banks or their sols.

 

If I was nit-picking, I'd say you probably don't need to justify the contractual interest claimed. You've already done that on your LBA and POC.

[orfoster]

Thanks. I will be sending it off 2nite. I think i don't send a copy off to the courts.

[GaryH]

You could'nt send a copy to the court even if you wanted to. Presumably their letter was marked 'without prejudice' and as your response refers to and discloses the contents of their letter, yours too is barred from being shown to the court.

[orfoster]

Oh yeh, so it does say that. Thanks. Letter away..........................

[The cobbett slayer]

Maybe we can clear something up here.

 

Cobbetts letter is marked "without prejudice", avoiding disclosure to the court. It is necessary to refer to their letter in the reply so does this not overcome the problem of non-disclosure as your response is not "without prejudice". Even if you didn't directly quote from their letter, the judge might want to know what you were responding to.

[GaryH]

Not 100% sure what you're asking/telling me.

 

The contents of a without prejudice letter cannot be disclosed to a court. This still applies to subsequant letters if they disclose the contents of the initial 'without prejudice' letter.

[The cobbett slayer]

Thats what I was getting at Gary, whether it was possible to "inadvertantly" disclose all or part of the content of a without prejudice letter.

 

Perhaps a point for people to be aware of.

[orfoster]

Hey all.

 

Rite well i've almost had enough from NatWest now heres the story. This account i am claiming for is £1,042 O/D and i am claiming total charges over £1202 and with interest takes it to £1450. Over the weekend i had NatWests collections call me and write to me telling me they have defaulted me and will persue this debt as i owe them it. I asked them if they knew if their left hand knew what their right hand was doing. This court claim has been going on now for over 2 months and they say they don't know anything about it, they asked me when Cobbetts write to me to let them know as they won't know about it?!

 

So Natwest has given me a loan under the age of 18 to clear unfair charges, processed a cheque 12 times on a account when they are supposed to only do it twice!! They sent ALL my account details and statements (the whole SAR) to someone who has nothing to do with me and for a couple of days they had everything to do with my banking history on their dining table but they didn't do this just once or twice they did this 4 times!!!! To different people!

 

So now NatWest have defaulted me on this account which i am actually paying them back £30 a month using PayPlan even though i know this debt is made up of unfair charges im still paying it back and now they are telling me they have defaulted me.

 

What do you think i should do about it? Big letter of complaint about all of the above?? Obviously once they pay up for this account i will be closing all of my accounts as i don't use them now anyway.

 

I don't really know what to do.

[orfoster]

NatWest have now just taken a default notice fee from this account i am claiming for. I'll make sure i get this back as part of the settlement, if they offer me full settlement i write back and say i want this fee back plus the default removed or will i need to amend my claim now because they have done this?

 

Can't believe they did this considering i pay them £30 per month towards this debt as an agreement even though i know im getting the money back.