Hitachi Capital and Club La Costa

Lemonbriick

Hi

Looking for some help please.
My mum is being perused through the courts by Hitachi, They provided finance for a 3 year trial membership for Club la Costa.

My dad died a year into this. They went to the main complex in Spain and were talked into applying for full membership. Put a further £1,000 down and applied for finance. They were turned down and told to get it from their bank in the UK. The bank also turned them down, CLC were not interested in this and asked for a further £30,000. That week he died.

I managed to sort things with CLC and got a refund of the £1,000 and an email acknowledging that membership had been cancelled due to my mum's circumstances.

Mum stopped the hitachi direct debit and explained the situation to them. They were not interested and began to call the house 3 times a day. Eventually i got a form asking them to contact me. they did once and were abusive. they then starting writing to and calling my mum at work.

They have taken her to court for non payment. I have supplied emails for La Costa and a summary of events but a court mediator today said it would still have to go to court.

Any help or guidance would be appreciated.

thank you

Brock_and_Roll

Tricky one here. What are Hitachi pursuing your late father's estate for? - is it the outstanding balance on the 3 year trial? (presumably this is a few £k?). Or are they after the £30k that would seem to have been the cost of full membership?

If it is the former, then on the face of it the estate would appear to be liable. Hitachi effectively lent your dad £3k which was used to pay CLC for the trial membership. Assuming everyting done correctly, the fact that your father unfortunately died without being able to take full advantage of the trial is irrelvevant and the loan would need to be settle out of the estate. Its a bit like crashing a car on HP - you still have to pay for it even it does not exist anymore.

If the estate is being pursued for £30k, then this seems a much more complicated issue and you should seek proper legal advice BEFORE it gets to court.

Lemonbriick

Thanks. They want £5k for the initial trial membership, which in my opinion and also via email club la costa said is cancelled .

Brock_and_Roll

The reason Hitachi want £5k is due to the separation of contracts here. It seems there was 2 agreements - one between your dad and Hitachi whereby they lent him £3k or whatever. The second contract was between your dad and CLC for the trial membership for the £3k. So when these contracts were signed, CLC received the £3k, and Hitachi are owed £3k. This is exactly the same as buying a 3 piece suite on 12 months interest free credit etc.

The fact that CLC have "cancelled" the trial membership, does not get Hitachi's money back. If CLC really wanted to be reasonable, they would refund the unexpired portion of the trial membership which could be used to pay off the Hitachi loan.

So from Hitachi's perspective they have a perfectly legal loan agreement with someone - the fact that that person never received the full benefit of what they bought with the cash is not their problem - they are still out of pocket.

Whilst of course this all might sound manifestly unfair, I would be very wary of allowing this to go to court without proper legal advice - if Hitachi's docs are watertight the estate might end up with the costs as well. As I know from painful experience, fairness in probate cases is not always the way things go.