Received Abbeys Defence today ....... Could an expert take a look please

*Nate*

I have had Abbey's 'defence' letter today, making an offer of 65% of my total claim (minus interest and court costs)

A copy of the text :-

Covering letter/offer


"Without prejudice"
Dear Mr XXXX
Abbey National PLC XXXXX
Claim No: XXXXXXX
We enclose by way of service a copy of the Defence that we have filed with the court.
The next stage in the process will be for the Court to send to each of us anAllocation Questionnaire, which asks for certain information relating to the case before it proceeds to trial. In the interim, we are writing to you to ascertain whether you would be prepared to agree to a settlement of your claim now in order to avoid having to file the Allocation Questionnaire, to bring the matter to a close and also limit any further expense to either of us.
Regarding the charges, you will see from the Defence that Abbey takes issue with your claim on a number of points. For the purpose of this letter though, we should like to mention in particular that your claim seems to be based on an argument that you should not pay any charges at all. It cannot be correct that Abbey cannot charge anything at all if you become overdrawn or do not meet direct debits as Abbey must remedy the issues with the account and this incurs expense. This is in line with Banking Industry practise and the Terms and Conditions under which you opened the account. Even if it were correct (which is not accepted) that the charges are greater than Abbey's actual loss in dealing with your account, Abbey would still be entitled to charge you something for the expenses. Further, you will see the charges are liquidated damages, and not penalty charges and are therefore valid pre-estimates of loss.
Your claim is for the refund of $4599.00 in bank charges, interest and costs. As a matter of goodwill and without any admission of liability on Abbey's part, Abbey will offer to pay you 65 per cent your claim, that is, £2989.35. This would be in full and final settlement of your claim. This offer is conditional upon Abbey National Plc verifying the charges sought in your claim. In addition, any amount of monies refunded to you relating to the charges claimed will be offset against this settlement offer.
We hope that you will regard this as a very reasonable offer in the circumstances and a genuine attempt to reach an amicable settlement of your claim.

La lal la
Your faithfully

XXXXXX



COURT DEFENCE LETTER


DEFENCE


1. Save as is specifically admitted in this Defence, the Defendant denies each and every allegation set out in teh Particulars of the Claim

2. It is admitted that the Claimant has a bank account with the defendant, account number to be particularised ("Account")

3. At all times the Account has been subject to the applicable terms and conditions ("Conditions"), which form part of the contract between the Claimant and the Defendant and to which the Claimant agreed when he opened the Account. The Defendant will refer at trial to the full Conditions but for the purposes of this Defence will refer to the following extracts :

(1) "You can apply for an overdraft on your Account. If we give you an overdraft we will tell you your limit and the interest rate applicable".

(2) "An unauthorised overdraft occurs if without out agreement you you overdraw your Account or exceed the limit of an overdraft which we have agreed"

(3) "If you have an unauthorised overdraft, you will be charged fees as set out in our Tariff of Charges or specified to you and these may include fees for transactions we are unable to process due to lack of available funds in your Account"

4. Throughout the period that he has had the Account, the Claimant received a number of copies of the Conditions and of the said Tariff of Charges as they were amended and updated (though there has been no material amendment to the Conditions extracted in paragraphs 3(1), (2) and (3) above.

5. Any overdraft facility on teh Account was (and is) subject to the Conditions.

6. The Claimant has overdrawn or exceeded authorised overdraft limits on the Account on a number of separate occasions, full details of which will be provided on disclosure. Therefore by virtue of the Conditions referred to in paragraph 3 above such overdrawing was unauthorised and in breach of contract and the Claimant became liable to pay fees to the Defendant in accordance with its Tariff of Charges applicable at the relevant time. In accordance with the Conditions, such fees were debited to the Account.

7. In view of the facts and matters referred to in paragraphs 3, 4, 5 and 6 above, the Defendant denies that the amount £4479.00 or any other, amount was unlawfully debited to the Account and the Claimant's claim for the repayment of that amount is therefore denied.

8. The Claimant's contention that the said fees are unenforceable and/or are "penalty charges" is denied. The fees reflect and are proportionate to the Defendant's administrative expenses incurred due to the Claimant's breach of contract and are a genuine pre-estimate of the damage suffered by the Defendant.

9. Further or in the alternative, even if the said fees are not proportionate to the Defendant's administrative expenses incurred (which is denied), the Claimant remains liable to pay such fees as may be found to be proportionate and the Claimant is not entitled to claim repayment of the full amount of each charge made to the Account.

10, The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to claim interest in the sum of £679.40 or any other amount or at all.

11. No admissions are made as to the amounts claimed by the Claimant and the Claimant is put to strict proof of the same.




Can anyone explain this in English please ?

skydivebuzz

Don't worry,I recieved the same letter from abbey with it seems only personal details and ammounts different.

Here is what I posted on the forum about it earlier this week.

As I said earlier I recieved a letter on Saturday offering me the standard 65%GOGW which was £1546.50 from a claim of £2379.21.

I rang one of the numbers on the letter and got through to Ronan Coyle, abd told him that I was unable to accept the offer and that I was sending him a letter to confirm my decision.

He asked me if I would like to make a counter offer, and I explained to him that if he could tell me exactly how much it cost Abbey then I would happily ammend my claim to reflect that, if he copuld not tell me then I would only settle for the whole ammount.

He was a little blunt (although not rude) and told me to go ahead and send the letter.

Here is a copy of the letter I sent which I drafted from a couple of letters I had read on this forum.

"Dear Mr Coyle,

</O:pRe. Account number: xxxxxxxx
Thank you for your letter dated 12<SUP>th</SUP> July 2007 with respect to my claiming back of bank charges made to my account over the last six years.

With regards to your offer of £1546.50 in full and final settlement of my claim, I would like to inform you that I am not willing to accept this offer.

You infer that I am of the belief that I should not have to pay any charges at all. This is completely untrue. What I am objecting to is the way your charges are totally disproportionate to the cost of the breach on my part, and therefore unlawful. If you could reveal to me, in writing, exactly how much it costs for a breach and an automated letter to be sent, I would happily pay this amount. For me to be charged a total of £50+ for such a breach is something which I regard to be disproportionate, and there are many other examples of this, as previously enclosed to Abbey since raising my complaint.<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
The only possible way you can legally defend yourselves against any part of this claim is to provide me with a detailed costing of the administrative process that added the charges to my account, as banks have already asked to produce by Judge Iain Beresford at Hull County Court earlier this month.

Unfortunately until such time that you make this information available to myself and, should we get that far, to the court, I can not accept any offer less than the total charges applied, plus interest @ 8% as per my schedule, and a full refund of the £120 court fee I have paid. As of today, that now totals £2394.75.

I should also remind you that should you defend this claim and it is passed to my local court there will be a further £100 administrative fee that I will pay and you will become liable for. You will also be liable for a 'Self Litigation Fee' of £230 to cover my out of pocket expenses and time in researching and defending my case.
<O:p</O:p
However, I would like to make it clear that I too am genuinely willing to reach an amicable settlement, and am prepared to accept a sum of £2259.21, plus £120 in court costs, in full and final settlement of my claim.

This offer will be valid for 7 days from the date of this letter. If I do not hear from you within that time, I will continue to pursue the matter through the courts.
<O:p</O:p
Yours sincerely<O:p</O:p
AFG Busby

I sent this letter registered post to Mr Coyle so he will recieve it today, at least I can see a light at the end of the tunnel."

I sent the letter Next Day Special Delivery on Monday and they recieved it on Tuesday, so I will give Mr Coyle a rcall today and see if he wants to make another offer.

<!-- / message -->

*Nate*

Let me know the outcome, as I will probaably go the same way .

Warby

I find it amazing that each and every case is so different yet the defense you have received is identical to the one I received.

I do so want my day in court…….will they come?
<O:p</O:p
Have you had any success in putting together your statement of evidence? I am just in the process of doing mine and would like to review it with someone….any takers?

nickmack

*Nate* wrote: »

Can anyone explain this in English please ?

The bank solicitor is making you a partial offer. Their argument is they're entitled to charge something.

skydivebuzz' letter is a good reply to this. It lets the bank know, they can't just choose an amount for the charges, the costs must be proved.

You may also like to point out to the bank it can be argued the entire term permitting the Defendant to levy such charges is unenforceable under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and at Common Law.

lewisdi

I had exactly the same letter this morning with a 65% offer of settlement from Abbey. I tried ringing through to the number given on the letter and had a very brief conversation where i was told that this would be Abbeys final offer and would not negotiate.

Thanks for the above letter, I will send this off today and see what response I get. Otherwise I will wait and win in court instead.

welshchups

Can anyone help? I have claimed for £2500 worth of charges from Abbey. Today I have had a letter offering me £360.00 as a goodwill gesture. Unbelieveably I have checked my bank account and they have already put the money in my account!! Is this normal? I am not hsappy about the amount and they have said that I have 8 weeks before they close my file. The only thing I am worried about is if I say no and push it further how will I stand with the new test case?