Bank / building society - court action to reclaim my cash.

Macca83_2

agrinnall wrote: »

Reading between the lines I think the BS suspect you of money laundering or some other illegal activity. I would suggest that rather than trying to do this by post or secure messaging, you make an appointment to discuss it in person with them so that you can show them where the money came from and answer any queries that they have.

Exactly. They don't just refuse you your money. Something in your run of accounts has thrown up a potential red flag. Get into the branch and discuss it with a person. Go armed with your id and source of funds and go from there.

grumbler

Archi_Bald wrote: »

You would be surprised how long a Court will give people to respond. Particularly if there is no danger to life, as is the case here.

I think 2 weeks is pretty typical for a LBA. After all even 2 weeks is far too long time for a simple reply, confirmation that your enquiry is being dealt with and setting a timeframe.

8 weeks is normally the deadline for resolving the complaint, but so far the OP have not received any indication that his enquiry was being dealt with. If they wanted some proofs they should have requested them from the OP.

It makes no sense to wait for for 2 months if your complaint is being blatantly ignored. I am surprised that some (all?) ombudsmen insist on this, but they aren't the law.

BonkersBonkers

Macca83 wrote: »

Exactly. They don't just refuse you your money. Something in your run of accounts has thrown up a potential red flag. Get into the branch and discuss it with a person. Go armed with your id and source of funds and go from there.

But it will make no difference IMO as the decision would not have been made in branch and normally cannot be overruled in branch.

thenudeone

meer53 wrote: »

You wouldn't stand a chance in court if you've not given them chance to respond to you.

Why? The only question a court can decide is whether the bank owes him/her the money. OP has asked for his money. Bank has refused.

The complaints process / FOS are all over and above any statutory or contractual remedies available, they don't prevent them.

Money should have been paid (in line with the terms of the account (i.e. the contract) but hasn't = CCJ against the bank.

There is no obligation to go through a protracted period of negotiation or a complaints process before court.

A court can't refuse to issue a CCJ simply on the basis that the complaints process hasn't been exhausted.

innovate

thenudeone wrote: »

A court can't refuse to issue a CCJ simply on the basis that the complaints process hasn't been exhausted.

Courts will take a dim view of cases where reasonable efforts to settle outside court have not been taken. I think it would be reasonable to assume that where a company has a published complaints procedure, using this procedure would need to part of the efforts before bringing the case to court. If this has not been done, the court will simply postpone any hearing until those reasonable efforts have been made. Add to that some time for the court to have the next free slot for a hearing, and you are easily talking months, not weeks, before your case gets heard.

It's also worth remembering that a complaint doesn't have to take 8 weeks. In many cases, people get a resolution or final answer within less than half that time.

Macca83_2

BonkersBonkers wrote: »

But it will make no difference IMO as the decision would not have been made in branch and normally cannot be overruled in branch.

It may be something as simple as not having the required id on file to authorise the closure or perhaps they don't have the his signature stored on the system so they are unable to say whether or not that he is indeed the account holder.

thenudeone

innovate, I would agree, if the court case concerned a complaint about damages, charges, interest or similar issues, but I expect that courts would take a dim view of commercial organisations who flout fundamental contractual obligations such as giving the account holder their money when they are entitled to it under the terms of the account.

An account holder should not be expected to wait three months for a complaints process to be exhausted when their bank won't allow them to have their money.

BonkersBonkers

thenudeone wrote: »

innovate, I would agree, if the court case concerned a complaint about damages, charges, interest or similar issues, but I expect that courts would take a dim view of commercial organisations who flout fundamental contractual obligations such as giving the account holder their money when they are entitled to it under the terms of the account.

An account holder should not be expected to wait three months for a complaints process to be exhausted when their bank won't allow them to have their money.

The only problem with your argument is that we do not know if the money is actually his do we?

rb10

I think many posters are getting a little ahead of themselves with discussion about complaints processes and court action.

It's a little early for that yet when the OP hasn't yet actually spoken to the bank about this.

There's clearly a problem. The first step should be to ask how it can be resolved, rather than launching straight into court action.

BillJones

thenudeone wrote: »

innovate, I would agree, if the court case concerned a complaint about damages, charges, interest or similar issues, but I expect that courts would take a dim view of commercial organisations who flout fundamental contractual obligations such as giving the account holder their money when they are entitled to it under the terms of the account.

An account holder should not be expected to wait three months for a complaints process to be exhausted when their bank won't allow them to have their money.

The courts will tend to understand that building societies do not withold money for capricious reasons, and when the building society give the legitimate reason that they have followed procedures then the case will most likely be thrown out.