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[Redshell]

Dear All,

I am new to this so please bear with me........I am looking for some help regarding a situation that I naively thought I had sorted and has come back to bite me.....so here goes...

I have a CCJ for a £22,025 loan that I failed to repay to Natwest. I now have an agreement with the court which I am fully able to pay and have been doing so for the last 14 months.

I recently obtained a copy of my credit file and further to a telephone call to Natwest's solicitors, it became apparent that I have been charged interest of 8% apr; this means that more interest is being added and I would have spent the rest of my life paying interest while the loan amount added up and up...

I have managed to get the interest charge frozen with immediate effect (and yes I have it in writing also!), but I have been asked to put my complaint in writing regarding the last 14 months of interest that I have been paying and why I think they should refund it.

I am now at a loss as to where to start and wondered whether anyone had any experience with this type of thing before or whether there is anything that I should know before I proceed...I know that legal advice may be one avenue but really can't afford to go down that route.

Any advice welcome.......thank you!

[Snaggles]

Hiya, I've never come across that situation before - I will bump your thread to see if anyone else has any ideas, but I would also perhaps speak to the CAB to see if they can give you any advice.

[hitback]

hm! Interesting, good old NW!!! We've just submitted a complaint via the FO regarding interest charged on an overdraft which was originally under £5k but thanks to NW applying interest is £5.5k!!! they also issued us with a CCJ which is fine as we had increased our payment with CCCS anyway. Did they tell you they would be applying interest after the CCJ, if not there is one point to argue, also did they notify you of the rate?? To be honest you've highlighted the main point of disoute in that you are trying to pay the debt off and they are not helping you to do this by applying interest....Like Snaggles says, still might be wise to speak to CAB or Debtline?
Good Luck!

[nomoneynomoney]

let me know how you go because I might be in a similar situation with nat west

[Tuscan]

yep good old natwest, im having the same issue with them, so far im £5000 down in interest charges and as of last week i have a ccj, they have said they have no intention of stopping the interest either..

im waiting to go back to court as they wont except the courts dission on a monthly payment, they want a charge on my home and still want to hit me with 8% interest untill the 27k debt is payed off, this equates to over £200 a month in interest charges alone. this will mean i will only ever be paying the interest and never the debt unless i sell up and pay them out of the sale.

to add insult to injury, i had already payed off 10k before going on a debt managment plan, i have payed a further 5k since then over 2.5 yrs and the debts more now than it was 3yrs ago

NW are utter Ba******

[Tuscan]

forgot to ask is the 22k you got the ccj for the outstanding amount including all interest that you would have payed if the loan had run its course, ie if it was a 20k loan then the total amount payable would have been x amount and thats what they whent for less any payments you had made, or in the credit aggreament does it say interest is added daily untill the loan is payed up

[hitback]

Redshell, how did you manage to get them to freeze the interest? Is this a permanent arrangement or temporary??
I wouldn't trust NW as far as I could throw em, and believe me that would be pretty far off a short pier!!!!!

[Tuscan]

if need be you can take them back to court and get a time order cost £70, this means a judge will set the interest amount if any and the bank have to abide by it, this is what im expecting to have to do, they have to be reasonalbe in the way they manage debters and by charging more interest than the monthly payment is far from be a responsible lender..

[hitback]

Yes heard about that. waiting to hear what bull they come back with to our complaint....If needs be then we will take them to court...best of all they sent us a letter today asking if we'd like to book a review with our personal manager!!! Seem to have forgotten they kicked us out over a year ago!!! *******!!!!!

[Tuscan]

i still have my ltd company acount with them, would like to change it but would be more hassle than its worth. im suprised they didnt try to close it, but being a ltd company account i dont think they can touch it...

i too get letters from my buisness manager asking if theres anything i want..lol

[hitback]

No i don't think they can. They just annoy the crap out of me!!! especially when i have to look at their stupid advert on tv!!!

[hitback]

still interested to find out why they froze the interest for redshell tho

[Tuscan]

yeah me to

as far as i can tell

a lot of it comes down to what the credit aggrement says, if it says you pay x amount per month and shows the total charge for interest and gives the total amount payable. ie loan amount 10k interest amount 2k total amount payable 12k then i think they cant charge anymore than that, even with a ccj you will still only have to pay 12k and any payments you made would be taken off that.

but if the loan says interest charged on a daily or yearly basis then legaly theu can keep sticking it on untill the loans payed off, this is what mine says, so unless they decide otherwise the only way i can stop it is to do it through the court and hope i can get a judge to freez or reduce the charges....

[Redshell]

Thank you all for your comments, they have been really useful. You have all raised really good points.

This debt is complicated as it comprises of an overdraft that I couldn't repay of approx. £2900 and the rest is the outstanding loan amount that I haven't repaid.

My loan agreement is (I am sure but will check) for a set amount of interest for the amount and term of the loan, and when this was included in the CCJ, the loan amount included an interest charge of in excess of £2k, so I think that as with many other loans, you pay the interest back first then the loan amount.......so I have been paying towards the interest which has left £2k and the outstanding loan amount of £16k.....this was also how it was displayed in the default notice....I will need to check all this though!

As for how long the interest will be frozen for, this has concerned me greatly as the letter only states that it is frozen and does not specifiy a period and I did wonder if they were awaiting a judgement in one of the big bank charge cases before deciding how to proceed. However, they had stated over the phone that it was frozen permanently but I will be chasing this.

As for how I managed it.....I argued that they had failed to be transparent in their information with me, their solicitors had been purposely evasive despite my attempts to gain information about my account & progress with payments on my account, I also threatened to complain about thier conduct to the FSA and about their solicitor's conduct to the Law Society. I argued that their behaviour in current climate would be condemned by a court of law and that they were supposed to be fair and transparent in their dealing to assist me in my repayment. I did complain about all the money that I had already paid in interest but they said I had to complain in writing about that if I wanted to request it back. They have done something wrong though somewhere as it took them all of five minutes to call me back and apologise (yes I said apologise!)...and I am determined to find out what so I can recoup the interest added already.

I will keep you informed....

[Redshell]

I am very pleased to say that the interest has been frozen permanently on my account, I spoke to them today and another letter is being sent to clarify this point....I will await the letter before I breathe easy.