Lloyds victory in Birmingham - in perspective

[Pliny the Penuriosus]

The DJ seems to have accepted the part of Lloyds defence which says:

 

"It is asserted that the charges are fair and reasonable and not unlawful, and in particular in relation to the UTCCR, it is asserted that as they constitute the price payable by the consumer for services provided, they are excluded from any consideration of fairness by regulation 6 of those regulations"

 

Here, Lloyds & the court are trying to say that they form part of the "core terms" of the contract which is in direct conflict with the OFT's view from their April 2006 statement

 

Default Charges are not "core terms"

 

3.4 "Core terms" relate to the definition of the main subject matter of the contract or to the adequacy of the price or remuneration as against the services supplied in exchange. They are subject to the UTCCRs, but are outside the test of fairness by virtue of Regulation 6(2). We do not consider that terms providing for default charges are core terms.(In this context the breaches of contract which may lead to a default charge typically arise where a customer exceeds a credit limit, fails to pay or fails to honour a payment.) Consumers do not generally enter into such contracts expecting to incur these charges. We consider that the charges are not the substance of the bargain but are simply an incidental charge that is applied if some of the main obligations are not complied with"

 

1.13 on page 4 of the OFT Doc

 

We will in general be careful to ensure that the concerns we have raised are effectively addressed. We cannot be tolerant of strategies, which seek to avoid the substance of these concerns, for example by merely changing the nomenclature or re-characterising the charges. We deal with this again below.

 

This is where the Claimant should have brought in the OFT statement about cloaking from the April 06 report which is basically the same as the extended paragraph from the new consultation doc 9and does incidentally, seem to be the difference between the PAG and CAG POCs)

 

Disguised penalties

4.21 The analysis in this statement is in terms of explicit, transparent default

fees. Attempts to restructure accounts in order to present events of

default spuriously as additional services for which a charge may be made

should be viewed as disguised penalties and equally open to challenge

where grounds of unfairness exist.12 (For example, a charge for 'agreeing

to' or 'allowing' a customer to exceed his credit limit is no different from

a charge for the customer's 'default' in exceeding his credit limit.) The

UTCCRs are concerned with the intention and effects of terms, not just

their mechanism.

 

The claimant didn't bring this up however and the judge went with the Defence argument

 

15. Having held that the charges complained of are not charges for breach of contract but part of the price of the services provided by the bank, it follows in my judgment that regulation 6(2) prevents the court from making any determination that they are unfair. In this respect, the result is the same whether those charges for a package of services, or as an individual charge for an individual service such as making a payment that causes an overdraft limit to be exceeded. The result is equally the same whether the criticism is that the price is too high (on the basis that because the cost involved was lower only a lower charge would be justified) or whether it is said that it is unfair that a charge should be made at all and the bank's charges should be structured in some completely different way"

 

It should be noted that The Law Commission have made a report on combining the UTCA and the UTCCR which has been accepted and is due to be implemented this August I understand.

This is clearly at varaince not only with the court but also some of the post on this site

[Pliny the Penuriosus]

To the MODS I have the PDF document which I refer to in my post no76.

 

If you would like a copy let me know Be warned however it's very long.

[rhoodnotts]

Hi,

How do I do a Subject Access Request (SAR) for my original Terms & Conditions, I've been with Barclays for about 40 years...

[TUTTSI]

My O/H was speaking with Barclays Litigation team yesterday as they are actually finalising his claim and cheque should be on it's way anytime now, they said in view of the Lloyds win they would be changing their stance on settling claim. I read into this that they will try and go to court and not settle before as they normally do. But one thing IMHO I think that they would have to start putting in their bundles of evidence and this is something that they do not want to do or have not done upto now.

 

I think that BF is right in her assumptions that we have to prepare our cases well before contemplating going to court and dot the i's and cross the t's and advise CAG when our court dates are so that we can all benefit from the help of this site.

 

DS

[Pen]

Hi Monkey, if you can would you mind sending me a copy as well. I am in court next week and every bit of info would be of great help. I can Pm you with my email or address

Thanks

PEN

[rhoodnotts]

I have a Court Hearing (along with lots of other cases) on 25 June at Kingston (upon Thames) County Court, so I'm feeling I should start preparing, which is why it seems to me that getting a copy of my orgianl contract is a good place to start. Is this correct????

[Pliny the Penuriosus]

It is. If the bank refuse to give you the original stating that their T'c & C's have changed demand the original T's & C's If they again refuse ask them to confirm what has 'changed' between the old & the new.

 

Finally if they have still not supplied it you must ask the court for complete disclosure with specific reference to these older terms

[rhoodnotts]

Thanx Pliny, will do

[Soniam1981]

I am at home right this second filling in my N1. Several times today i have thought about giving up as the thought of going to court with no legal support or someone with more experience in this field is frightening me to death. I am worried if Lloyds to turn up to court and i am worried if they dont. I have no experience in this matter and have never been anywhere near a court room. I am claiming £1469 with a Lloyds loan still outstanding and with no copy of my Terms and Conditions. I have read as much as the next person on here and as much as it is very helpfull i find some of it hard to understand as i am dyslexic. I feel as though i have already lost.

[Pen]

I don't have my T&Cs however I have a judgement against lloyds for none complience of SAR which would i assume contain my T&CS as i asked for everything. How would this work in relation to my court hearing.

[photoman]

Monkey

Could you send me a copy too please ?

Send me a PM, and I;ll give you an email address to send them to.

 

ALSO EVERYONE

 

Is everyone aware of this thread?

 

It's a call for anyone who has any old copies of T&C's or contracts etc.

 

Look in you attics !

 

Look in your garages !

 

Look down the Sofa !

 

Look in the bottom of the cats litter tray !

 

Get in touch with your ex (maybe take them some flowers)... then sneak into their attics and see if you left stuff there !!:grin:

 

See if you can find anything that can be put into a library database for the benefit of others.

 

We need your help folks! Re old T&Cs

 

Happy hunting !!

 

PS: Think about sticking the link into your signature also ?

 

PM

[Guest xipetotec46]

Read what judges are saying about the banks:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6653757.stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6653757.stm

 

BBC NEWS | Business | Judge warns 'unreasonable' banks

 

and what the BEEB and the OFT are saying:

BBC NEWS | Business | Watchdog probes cost of banking

 

and this from th A&L:

BBC NEWS | Business | Bank retreats on overdraft fees

 

and to help you keep your chin up high.. no!! no!! higher than that

BBC NEWS | Business | Man recovers £35,988 from NatWest

[Cruicky2]

The Small Claims Court service must be getting fed up with the hundreds of claims where the banks don't turn up and generally waste the courts time! Is it possible that a Judge has decided to make such a poor decision, that the claimant will appeal to a higher authority and actually push for a definitive decision and thereby stop all these time wasting claims. Hopefully Lloyds would defend and a sensible High Court Judge will settle this once and for all. The banks know the eventual outcome and that they will have to pay up, lets get the ball rolling, come on Mr. BERWICK appeal, help is there and I am sure it won't cost you a penny in the long run!

[Pen]

I have loads of old T&Cs the are writern on the back of the older style bank statements ie pre 1998, so check the back of your statements everyone.

pen

[golfscape]

I am in urgent need of T & C's / contract for a TSB current account opened in 1995. (no lloyds involvement back then) This now called the Lloyds TSB 'classic' account

 

Lloyds are unable to provide!

 

Anyone able to help?

[10810]

I believe that banking institutions are more danerous to our liberties than standing armies

 

"THOMAS JEFFERSON"

[10810]

Educate and inform the mass of the people.... they are the preservation of our liberty

 

THOMAS JEFFERSON

 

Basicly the banks can't win if we the people stand together(which we are), if each of us just spoke to two people today about these crimes and got them to do the same, then we the people, will succeed.

[fairbank]

As Mr Beecham said you must try everything in life just once apart from Incest and Country Dancing! I think I will add the banks to that quote as well.

 

The army marches on but the small scale battles will continue until the generalsand politicitions finally sort out their act out!

[PinkPaula]

I just wanted to say to you all, I won today

 

LloydsTsb have settled in full, including fees and interest on the last day that the court had given them to file documents, after they failed to file them by the first deadline. Money has gone in to my account and everything.

The reason I am posting this here is that they originally offered me £750 as a "goodwill gesture" ( I believe a standard offer amount), and because it was over the Christmas period my refusal of their offer was missed and the amount paid to me. They agreed I could still go on to try and claim the remainder though, (nice of them!?)

When I filed my case to MCOL they came back and submitted a defence as amount paid. I couldn't find anyone on this site they had done that too, and I was worried by that. I followed instructions from here to the letter (but without a bank contract in my bundle as I didn't realise I had to include this)

My point is that they still have paid, and my total amount was dated back to the time I requested my charges through Data Protection. This was in fact over 6 years ago from now as it's taken months to get to this point.

Don't give up guys, prepare everything carefully and stick to your guns. Maybe this guy who lost his case had a shoddy court bundle. Who knows?

They ARE still paying out though

PP xx

[pward33]

Very encouraging news PinkPaula - well done and thanks for letting us know.

 

Do wqe know if Lloyds have settled and more cases since Kev's?

[Pliny the Penuriosus]

There have been posts on here that imply that much of what has been said is ill informed & without merit.

 

It’s true I think that many posters have understandably vented their anger over this judgement without giving much thought to the legal reasoning behind it.

 

However it’s also true that as BF has already intimated that from a strict commercial sense that whilst there has apparently been no breach of contract in this case within the terms of the banks now amended T’s & C’s that it’s also true, as BF has also indicated, that it’s within the power of the court to look behind the purely commercial terms of the contract & take in to account the real effect on the private citizen. For goodness sake! I know, the banks know, most of the courts (except for one in Birmingham apparently)& my dog probably knows that these charges ARE penalties plain & simple used to subsidise 'Free' banking & that the banks have surreptitiously changed their T’s & C’s over time even removing them from their websites

 

Why the court should ignore it’s overriding principal is unknown to me & leaves me a little nonplussed. It is after all dealing with matters, which affect millions of consumers, & not business to business where it could be more readily argued ‘caveat emptor’

 

I suspect that other courts, if forced to make a judgement, will take a different view & any bank that relies on this single judgement could, in the longer term, find themselves digging a hole because after being challenged in a higher court they could bring matters to a head as case law on this matter will become formed.

 

I think now a strategy is needed to call the banks bluff & mine would be if I don’t have copy of the T’s & C’s previous to them being altered & am unable to obtain them because of the bank refusal to comply with my request I would ask the bank to confirm the change from/to thereby forcing the bank into admitting that they have changed their T’s& C’s to disguise their penalty charges as service charges.

 

Failing which and provided I'm sure they were contained in my original T's & C's, as a punishment for not maintaining my account in a certain way, I would include such a statement to that effect in my POC & the banks would effectivley either have to admit it or commit perjury by claiming my statement was incorrect

 

IMHO

[monkeylover]

hi folks been on the ltsb web site and in the charges section they still refer to the overdraft and unpaid DD fees as charges or fees not service costs.

hopefully will have some luck with uploading the old t&c document over the weekend.

for the moment the link for the charges page on the ltsb site is

Lloyds TSB - Current account charges

hope thishelps you folks out there and good luck if you are at the court stage.

it is taking me ages due to ltsb's foot draging just sent the first polite letter requesting charges back think i better start gettig ready to see them in court

[Mistermind]

A suggested argument re

Breach of Contract charge,

not Service Charge.

 

donnalou vs lloyds tsb ( 2)

[setmefree]

One case won by a bank and there are far too many people worrying,before the case everyone was united on claiming their charges back.so now what is so different.

Bankers do read these threads and are loving the negative side that is now appearing on different forums,in my view this judge put the winning side to the bank not because he thought the bank was correct,more of challenge to see if this case would be taken to an appeal. this in turn in a higher court would make a status decision regarding further claims.

Kevin don't give up now many people are offering you help of all kinds,and if you take another look at Martin Lewis interview on GMTV you will see that his opposition at several times looked looked nervous and worried.

[MadKit]

I have a court date on Thursday for which I already had an offer and declined as I am holding out for a bigger offer. I received a letter this morning from bank that they faxed to the court they are trying to consolidate all claims into 1 and change Thursday's court date. They are saying I didn't provide breakdowns of charges for the 2 small claims, this is untrue as they have had all the details. They are amending their defences for both claims and have enclosed a copy of Judge Cooke's approved judgement. I will be sending a full court bundle to both court and the solicitors on Monday but I am now quite worried about this and didn't do this before as the AQ was dispensed with.

 

Do I need to do more? Do I need a solicitor?