Credit Van Hire

CuddleyDuddley14

My husband entered in to a Credit Van Hire after a no fault claim This was instigated by an Accident Management Company and surprise surprise also the owners of the Credit Van Hire. The third party insurers accepted responsibility and offered a settlement figure as the van my husband owned was deemed a write off. The AMC advised us to accept the settlement figure and they would fight on for the difference between their valuation and the third parties Never happened . We agreed the settlement figure early August and expected payment shortly after Well after numerous phone calls to AMC who told us third party were holding up payment they inadvertently sent a long email trail which basically saw the third party insurers had been trying to pay us from mid August onwards Eventually we contacted the third party insurers who paid us directly late October Now the ACM company want us to sign papers supply bank statements etc which we are quite happy to do as the third party are refusing to pay extortionate hire fees especially as the van could have gone back mid to late August What I would like to know if possible is there any chance of this going to court as my husband is in his seventies and this has caused us such distress over many months  and do the AMC and the third party have to submit paperwork for a judge to decide if there is a case to answer Sorry for the length of my question I am also in my seventies and extremely upset and anxious over this whole scenario 

DullGreyGuy

A small proportion of cases actually end up in court and of the ones that do a good proportion are dealt with via written evidence only. For the minority that actually end up in person in court its nothing like the TV shows... many civil cases are held in chambers, basically a business meeting room, with each party down one side of the table and the judge at the head. There are no robes or wigs or the other ceremony involved in other aspects of law. 

There is no pre-trial hearing to decide if there is a case to answer, just a directions hearing that is normally dealt with by submissions to decide which track of the court system it goes through... under £10k normally small track, under £25k fast track and over that multi-track. Has some implications for the AMC and Insurer but not for you other than its an estimate of the amount of time it may take being up to a couple of hours, up to a day or maybe more than a day. 

If you search on here there are several people's experiences listed of actually having to go to court for a Motor claim and all of them said it wasnt actually a bad experience on the day and they had feared it'd be much worse than it was. 

You are obliged to support the AMC in their recovery attempts and so dont say your not wiling to go to court etc but point out age, distress, anxiety etc and that you're concerned this may impact how you'd present as a witness.  Given there is no dispute on liability etc the whole matter is really between the two companies and it's very possible you wouldn't even have to speak at the session if it got to that

CuddleyDuddley14

Thank you that makes us feel less stressed. we have now handed the negotiations over to our daughter and given permission for her to deal with the AMC  She works for one of the largest insurance companies in the UK and shown their legal department all the documentation and they actually laughed and said if the AMC take that to court they will be laughed out of the door so feeling much happier now Reminder to ourselves never ever sign a Credit Van/car Hire Agreement again 

DullGreyGuy

CuddleyDuddley14 said:
shown their legal department all the documentation and they actually laughed and said if the AMC take that to court they will be laughed out of the door so feeling much happier now Reminder to ourselves never ever sign a Credit Van/car Hire Agreement again 

Having not seen the documentation myself, I would say that legal teams in insurance firms are somewhat hard coded to contest most credit hire claims... DLG initially did a good job of bankrupting a few by refusing to pay any until the very last second but then started doing referrals to some themselves. I always used to fight them but then the company struck a deal to get a good slug of monies off in exchange for settling all small cases without a debate/verification but had a right of audit. 

What would you have done had you not had credit hire? Whilst they are not my favourite companies many people cannot cope with a Corsa or Up! as a substitute courtesy car for their Transit van and cannot afford an open ended hire period at day rates.

CuddleyDuddley14

TBH not really disputing the need for Credit Van Hire just the fact that no body informed us we had the right to “ Shop Around” their words not mine As van hire was included on the original,policy we unfortunately had no idea what Credit Van Hire was The main dispute in our opinion is the fact that the third party insurers actually emailed an offer to the AMC early August we accepted the offer verbally on the phone on the AMC advice then due to a catalogue of errors and miscommunication on mainly the AMC side payment was not made till early November The third party insurers issued an email to the AMC on the 12/9 saying due to their (AMC) failure to reply they would no longer be liable for van hire costs plus numerous emails asking for BACS details so they could pay us .At one point the AMC were actually dealing with the wrong Insurers We have several emails sent by mistake from the AMC to ourselves proving all the above information so I just cannot get my head round why they are threatening to take this to court. I would assume the third party insurers are prepared the Van Hire costs up to the email dated 12/9  Thank you once again for your response and advice /help 

CuddleyDuddley14

As a follow up to the above My husband has now been sent Claims Document against third party for Vehicle Van Hire  plus Court Documents Is this common practice to issue Court Documents from the start of AMC trying to claim Van Hire Charges .We are fully cooperating but still very anxious over Court Proceedings although it has been said above that most do not end up in Court is this just par for the course Thank you in advance 

DullGreyGuy

CuddleyDuddley14 said:

As a follow up to the above My husband has now been sent Claims Document against third party for Vehicle Van Hire  plus Court Documents Is this common practice to issue Court Documents from the start of AMC trying to claim Van Hire Charges .We are fully cooperating but still very anxious over Court Proceedings although it has been said above that most do not end up in Court is this just par for the course Thank you in advance 

What do you mean "from the start"?

Hire has to have come to an end before the quantum of the claim is known so court proceedings cannot be issued from the very start. Similarly the CPR require you to take reasonable steps to deal with matters before the courts so realistically that will add a minimum of a month after hire has ended and often longer. 

When you decide to actually issue depends on what the communications are between the companies and the credit hire company's policy... if comms are flowing well, there are good reasons why the insurer isn't paying up yet then it makes sense to wait. If comms are being ignored or the insurer has categorically stated the policy has been voided so they aren't indemnifying the driver then movement to court will be quicker. 

CuddleyDuddley14

Sorry did not explain very well The Van Hire ended last November it was a prolonged hire period due to errors on AMC and third party insuers not responding with each other for example AMC sent three emails to  wrong part of third party insurers who  in reply said as AMC were not responding they would no longer be liable for hire that was in early September  An offer was made by third party in early August accepted by my husband and yet he was not paid till early November The VAn hire charges are extortionate and I understand why third party are refusing to pay all of that period. Now the AMC are pursuing the third party company (third party driver works for a large company) and have issued these court documents I was told by AMC that Court would be final resort so wondered why they have already sent documents to be signed . My husband has taken the advice offered by AMC that if we cooperate there is an insurance policy in place that will meet the cost of can hire at no expense to my husband and have given us written confirmation . The third party have also made errors as AMC have sent Bacs payment details to them several times and still no payment till early November . Hope that makes it clearer TIA 

CuddleyDuddley14

Just as a quick PS AMC have said third party have not accepted liability asked why they had paid out if that was the case and was told it was paid “without prejudice” which she said was common practice but when I asked what that meant it was just ignored 
 

BarelySentientAI

Without prejudice means "you can't use this against me in court".  So they've paid but are saying "this doesn't prove that we should have paid", like paying under protest.

People issue court documents as a way of proving they are serious about going to court if necessary.  It backs up their threat if they're actually doing the paperwork.

I've had several cases where it gets settled long after court documents are signed and court dates agreed, even on the day before court was due to start.

CuddleyDuddley14

Thank you for your  reply that does make me feel less stressed  as I said originally we are in to our seventies never been to court in our lives and although DullGreyMan has alleviated some of our concerns regarding the Court hearing not being like criminal court but usually held round a table I suffer with bad anxiety and this is just making it really bad at the moment especially as we feel particularly the ACM have made a litany of mistakes during the original claims procedure and now we are being made to suffer for their ineptitude Thank you once again for taking the time to reply