Commercially Viable?

[Falkirk1298]

Leaving the legalities of bank charges to one side for a moment, the banks must have some sort of cost/benefit formula when faced with actions to recover charges.

 

No bank in it's right mind is going to go to court to defend one £30 charge, the cost to them would be massively greater than any benefit they would accrue.

 

I wonder where the "roll-over" point is? Will they write off up to, say, £100 as "goodwill" but go all the way to the court door for amounts greater than that? At what point will they engage external solicitors to rack up the pressure, over £500?

 

Is it even that formal or is it purely a hand-to-mouth process for the banks?

 

Any thoughts?

 

J

[Anonymous]

It's my guess that anything over £5000 they will fight in court - this is because it would inflict the maximum damage on them/the claimant as regards to costs - they will NEED to win a case over 5k (not that they would have much hope, but they would most likely throw serious sums of cash at it, as to win would mean that the claimant would have to pay their legal costs in the unlikely event that they lost).

 

So if you have a claim of over (say) £5000 it may be in the claimant's interest to break in down into smaller chunks, say 3 claims of £1670 each filed over a period of time? I imagine that would piss the bank off mightily!

[Guest stephen]

i know of a case where they settled for just under £7000.00

 

the banks make 3 billion a year from these charges so even if there was a claim for £50,000.00 it would still make sence for them to settle.

[Seminole]

If the claim is for a different sorts of charge perhaps you could split it up accordingly. I'm going after Southern Pacific for the arrears fees first and then, if I think I will win for something for their horrible early redemption charges. My claims will be less than £5k but I don't want to sully the claim I am sure about with the one that might be more difficult.

[rbrears]

You should always be aware that you cannot guarantee that your claim will go ahead in the Small Claims Track. It is open to the defendant to make representations to the court that the case is not suitable for the Small Claims Track. They would likely say that complex issues of law were involved and have the matter listed in the next Track up or even the multi track if the sum is considerable.

 

However it is for the judge to decide and the issues are not really that complex so who knows what the likelihood of this is, save that the bank's lawyers would see this as a way of increasing the time/effort you have to put in and of course if they succeed then you will be at risk of some costs if you lose.

 

Maybe not that likely but it is a risk to be aware of.

[Falkirk1298]

This topic was closed on 03/05/19.

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