Completing Particulars of Claim for non-return of deposit - help!

[jsmith07611]

Hi everyone

I am new here and i am pretty sure my particulars of claim will be too vague after looking over it after filing for judgement.

 

The complaint is that i paid a deposit to an estate agent/limited company to purchase a property through paypal.

 

 

i never was given an opportunity to view it.

afterwards i requested a refund of the deposit which they kept promising to refund but never did.

 

moreso the director of the company illegally withdrew the funds of the deposit out of the paypal account even though it was a deposit and was not meant to be touched.

 

Please be so kind to tell me how to word a correct particulars of claim

 

thank you

[BankFodder]

It would be helpful if you would let us have more detail.

 

Tell us your story in a bullet pointed chronology. What is the value of the claim that you're proposing to make?

 

What kind of dialogue have you had the company and with the director about this situation? Have you sent them a letter of claim?

[jsmith07611]

thank you for replying. payment made 31/03/17

letter of claim sent on 15/05

deposit amount 5k

i would like there to be two defendants 1. the limited company (estate agent) 2. the director for withdrawing the deposit (presumably to himself without permission)

the defendant has kept promising to send the money but has not done so.

 

i hope this is the information you are requesting but if not please let me know as i am new to all this

 

thank you

[BankFodder]

It would probably be helpful to you if you gave us much more information. You have given a very abbreviated resume. I'm concerned that you have already fired off a letter of claim but haven't fully prepared yourself to issue the action if the letter of claim is ignored – which presumably is exactly what is happening.

 

We always tell people that they shouldn't start entering into any procedure or pre-action procedure without being very clear of the paths that they may have to take. Everybody should enter into this kind of action with a proper plan.

 

You say that this is for the purchase of a property. Is that right? And you are required to pay the money using a PayPal account? That is extremely unusual. Also, is extremely unusual to pay a deposit to an estate agent and not to the solicitors of the seller.

 

Is this a sale agreement – or are we talking about a rental agreement?

[jsmith07611]

thank you for replying

It would probably be helpful to you if you gave us much more information. You have given a very abbreviated resume. I'm concerned that you have already fired off a letter of claim but haven't fully prepared yourself to issue the action if the letter of claim is ignored – which presumably is exactly what is happening. you are correct. it has not happened yet but i requested judgement and think it will happen today

 

We always tell people that they shouldn't start entering into any procedure or pre-action procedure without being very clear of the paths that they may have to take. Everybody should enter into this kind of action with a proper plan. yes i understand that now. i should have come here beforehand

 

You say that this is for the purchase of a property. Is that right?yes And you are required to pay the money using a PayPal account? yesThat is extremely unusual.yes it is unusual, i think i am being scrammed Also, is extremely unusual to pay a deposit to an estate agent and not to the solicitors of the seller. yes i agree.

i think i am being scrammed. the payment was to reserve the property as it seemed that i was a good deal with potential

 

Is this a sale agreement – or are we talking about a rental agreement? purchase of property

 

thank you for replying and helping me

[BankFodder]

You say that you have requested a judgement – but this suggest that you have already issued a claim and no defence has been filed. I think you need to clarify this.

 

I agree that something seems to be very funny here. Do you know the identity of the seller? Do you know the identity of the seller's solicitor? I would be contacting them immediately to let them know what has happened and asked them if they are aware of this.

 

Have you signed anything? Are there any terms and conditions?

 

I hope you are my me saying that I shouldn't need to be asking these questions. You should really be presenting us with the entire story so that everything is clear rather than obliging us to tease it out of you.

 

Especially in an Internet forum environment, extending the length of the exchange because you don't simply about information at one go, makes everyone work much harder than they need to

[jsmith07611]

thank you for replying

 

I am sorry that it is taking this long. i am trying my best i thought it would not be that complicated poc.

 

I do not know the sellers or their solicitors.

They did have some terms and conditions which was adobe online signed. basically if the sale falls through i get refunded the deposit

 

so to try and sum up the whole story.

1 on 31/03 i found an estate agent/property sourcer called secretproperty.co.uk which are meant to source bmv property deals.

2 I thought they were legitimate as they are regulated by the property omubdsman and were adveritsing a property which i knew was on the market (although that was not the property i was interested in). i spoke to paul whos real name is pawel and he is the director of the company. see this link https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10361574/officers

he seemed legitimate at the time. he told me that if i wanted to secure the deal and therefore have first rights to buy it, in other words it would be considered sold subject to contract and only i would be allowed to view it i would need to pay a deposit which would be held by secretproperty and would be passed on to the seller once the deal completes. this was for 5k. so i paid that to them through paypal. I have no recourse though through paypal.

3. after a month and a half of excuses as to why they could not arrange a viewing they told me that they would refund me and i wrote to them requesting the refund. they subsequently pretended to refund through paypal with an echeque which never cleared. this happened three times with various excuses and i realised (already from a while back that it was a scram)

4. i was liasing with the property ombudsman to help me but they have not been much help as they have to be impartial and keep telling me that pawel is trying to refund via paypal.

5. i opened a mcol claim 20 days ago. in the poc i naively just filled in the story in short but i didn't use the correct protocol. I didn't know that one needed one but know i do realise my error. i could copy and paste what i wrote but you would just laugh at me. it is pointless

6 i put defendant 1 as secret propety ltd and defendant 2 as pawel. my claim against secret property was simply that they are not returning my deposit. my claim agains pawel (which i strongly presume although cannot garantee) was that he withdrew the deposit from secret propety accounts into his own accounts which he had no right to do. as the funds are definitely not by payapl any more.

7 the defendants have not replied to the claim so i asked for judgement last night

8 i think that since my poc are useless that the judge will stay/disqualify them

9 so please can you help me to draft a correct poc including any type of statutory and common law basis of my claim, for each defendant.

 

I hope this clarifies and i am only human and trying my best

[BankFodder]

If you have put in a claim and there has been no response to it, then if you have applied the judgement, the judge will be granted almost automatically regardless of the quality of your particulars of claim.

 

So from that point of view I don't think you need another particulars of claim. However, it would be helpful if you would post up here what you have written. Please post it in PDF format.

 

I would also start making some other investigations. You know the address of the property that you are attempting to buy. Have a look at the land registry website and you will find that you will be able to search for that property and you will be able to find out whether it is in ownership – and (I think) who owns it.

 

Is the property occupied or is it vacant? If it is occupied then I would go around their and see the people and see if they know anything about this. The deal with the agent seems to imply that they are the sole agents for this property. If they were not the sole agents then they would be busy taking deposits whilst in fact the owners or other agents of the property might be dealing with other prospective purchasers.

 

It crosses my mind that the owners of the property may not even know that this is happening – but this is just a suspicion and of course I have nothing to verify this. I might be being very unfair to the agents.

 

So, post your PDF POC. Find out about the ownership of the property on the land registry website.

[jsmith07611]

please see the attachment in jpg

 

[Andyorch]

Far too much personal allegations within your particulars...refrain from using names and stick to " the Defendant " Keep it factual succinct .

 

Andy

[jsmith07611]

thank you

[king12345]

Known sc@m.

He will pile up ccjs but has no assets, so nothing will come from it.

The ltd company is probably registered in a shared office where there's a desk and an old computer and most likely many more companies are registered there, so again no assets.

Sorry to say, but most likely you've lost 5k and court fees.