help needed vs barclays

slugger230

hello im new to the site so bare with me (sorry for the long post)

i could really do with some help and advice from you knowlegable people!

this is the situation.

today my mother recieved a notice of issue from northampton court. the claim said that barclays had filed a claim against her for an outstanding dedt of just over 5500!

this is the story of the dedt

back in about 98 ish she had a personal and a business account with them, her and my father, who recently passed away, had just started a new business and had run into some financial difficulty. they had an overdraft which due to fees etc ran up to about 3000 (not sure if this was between the 2 accounts or just one, i think the former) the bank then in about 99/00 forced them to turn the overdraft into a loan and then closed the business acc. the loan however was for about 8000 which is way over the initial overdraft anyway and is mainly due to interest and charges. they had agreed to pay £180p/m which they had been paying for about the last 4 years which i believe comes to about 8000 anyway (and she believes that they had paid about 250 a month to them for a bout five years before that!) due to the loss of my father my mother has once more come across fiancial troubles and has missed the last two payments, and then the summons arrives!

so the stage i am at is they wont settle for less than 5k, but i feel strongly that this dedt should not even exist.

i have a claim in the process with them on behalf of my mother for about 3500 but im not sure if its the same account. i have spoken to them and they wont write of the charges claim against the dedt either! the claim was issued yesterday so presumably i have 14 days to acknowledge and 28 to submit a defence, is this right? the claim can be managed online.

please could you help me compile a defence against them as i feel strongly that they have overcharged and are using buly boy tactics. i dont have statements of the loan acc or indeed the accounts that were turned into the loan, presumably i need to get them but cant wait the 40 days + for obvious reasons!

any help would be very much appreciated.

slugger

slugger230

does anybody have any ideas? i only have 28 days to submit a defence!

LozBingley

You really need to be putting in a counter claim or clear it off!

In an ideal world I would raise capital, say increase the mortgage (one of the cheapest ways to raise money), and pay it off pretty quick (within the 28 days). This would stop proceedings as there would be no debt to repay.

Then I'd start down the path of reclaiming all charges made to the account, as discussed in Martin's article.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges

Once all that is done I'd review my whole financial situation.