natwest court case 30th march, help

wendyloo_2

Hi all,

i have a court case coming up against natwest this month and i am getting scared. i sent the following letter to cobbetts this week but was flatly rejected:

WITHOUT PREJUDICE, SAVE AS TO COSTS AND SUBJECT TO CONTRACT


Dear Cobbetts,


I have taken the decision to write to your selves with one last opportunity to settle out of court. The total claim against me as it currently stands is for £6346.94. This figure is the total from three separate accounts:

• Loan Account

Sort code: Account No.
Amount outstanding: £3415.01


I am in the process of entering a counter claim for the above loan for miss sold PPI. I have calculated the amount to be in the region of £3319.27. For this account this would leave an amount outstanding of £95.74.

• Current Account

Account No.
Amount outstanding: £2138.85

I have a counter claim for bank charges on hold against this account and the joint account for a total of £2512.09. This would leave NatWest owing me an amount of £373.24. You are of the belief that because of the Supreme Court decision that this counter claim is not pursuable, I however would beg to differ. Please find attached two offer letters sent from NatWest to myself offering to pay back the full amount of charges that had been added to my accounts, neither of which were honoured. On these letters NatWest claim that their charges were to cover costs of services provided and that they were fair, reasonable and transparent. This is completely the opposite of what they informed the Supreme Courtin the test case. The banks disclosures to the Supreme Court were that their charges are NOT related to their administrative costs – or that they are NOT fair or reasonable, but that they are excessively high and that they are intended that way to cross-subsidise their other customers, because of this I believe that I have been treated unfairly and will be successful in my counter claim.

• Joint Account

Account No.
Amount outstanding: £793.08

This account was paid off as part of a full and final settlement with NatWest by my husband *********. NatWest confirmed to him at the time that he could take sole responsibility for this account and that I would not be pursued for this account. Please find attached a letter from Rockwell debt collection. Agency confirming this account was cleared within this full and final settlement offer. This outstanding balance needs to be cleared from the current claim.


Taking the above into consideration your outstanding claim needs to be reduced to the amount of £5553.86. My counterclaims for bank charges and miss sold PPI add up to the value of £5831.36. This means that if you insist on going through the court, you will end up owing me £277.50 plus what ever costs you have incurred.

I am however still willing to make an extremely reasonable offer of settlement to bring this matter to a swift close, on the condition that every mention of these accounts are completely cleared from my credit file with every credit reference agency. I do not mean just marked as cleared or satisfied but completely removed. On this condition I am willing to pay you a full and final settlement for the above claim of £1500 paid in monthly instalments of £41.67 so the balance would be cleared in 3 years.

Please reply with your decision within 7 days.

now they have replied today to say that they have rejected my offer and that they have also applied to the court for them to lift the stay on the current accounts and counter claim and hear them all together. As my counter claim is for bank charges i am unsure as to exactly what i need to argue.

for the loan part my original defence was based on them not having an ageement but now after 2 years of looking they have found an enforceable one. I am hoping that disputing the amounts due to the PPI will be enough to see me through the SJ hearing but i am not sure how effective that will be as i have not put it in as a counte claim as yet and it was not mentioned in my original defence.

Any suggestions as to my next step would be very helpful, i need to somehow survive this SJ hearing and then they may be more likely to settle?

if you need to know anything else then just ask.

As for all accounts i never received any default notices or termination notices however they claim they sent them and have provided screen prints saying they were sent. surely they would have to have more than just that?? they have no copies of the ones they sent just templates of what they would have looked like!

thanks in advance:)

Premier_2

On the whole, I'm not that surprised they rejected your proposal.

For the first 2 accounts representing the majority of the money they are claiming, you are relying on a stayed counter claim and a counter claim not even raised.
With just 11 days to the hearing date, I feel you have left things far too late, especially since the stay could probably have been lifted almost 4 months ago after the Supreme Court gave it's final decision on the test case.

With regards the final account representing a claim of £793.08, did you defend that at the time with your understanding that the matter was already settled? Have you already sent the claimant a copy of the evidence as part of the disclosure requirements? (presuming disclosure was ordered as is often the case in these type of claims). The letter you sent the latest copy under is marked "Without Prejudice ...", presumably you therefore don't expect any part of it to be used in court.

If not, the claimant might even win that on a technicality, but probably shouldn't, imo. My guess would be that you would win that part of the case if you show the judge the evidence, but due to circumstances the judge may not award you the costs.

I think what you should have done, and there may still be time (I'm not sure) would be to have delayed the court hearing date so that you could 'have got all your ducks in a line'

i.e. got the stay lifted on your counter claim for bank charges, got a counter claim in place for PPI charges and officially disclosed the evidence you have with regards to the settlement of £793.08 (and advise the court of that part of the defence if not already done so)

I think even if you can postpone the court hearing now, it will be too late to recover the court hearing fee you have paid (I think it has to be done 14 days before the hearing date) and I doubt you'll be allowed to attempt to recover that later from the defendant