Stay Lift in Court - Settlement Agreed

[Amethyst]

Lloyds Bank have pulled in the big guns in the way of Edward Levey from Fountain Court to defend a claimants application to lift a stay on grounds of hardship.

The claim, in Birmingham county court today at 11.50am, is being heard by Judge Truman.

The claimant will be represented by barrister Tom Brennan instructed by the claimant's solictors, Finer Stephens Innocent LLP.

Legal Beagles and Tom Brennan assisted the claimant in drafting a Witness Statement outlining her finanicial hardship, a new particulars of claim and skeleton arguments to be used in the hearing.


The main issues

1) That all charges are invalid under the UTCCR, Common Law and are invalid as there was no contractual basis under which to impose the charges. In the Judgement handed down by Justice Smith he said ''in the case of Lloyds’ TSB there is no evidence that it had any such power before its current terms of November 2007, and there is no evidence about how the Relevant Terms were introduced into its existing contracts''

2) A stop against future charges on her account for the reasons above.

3) Interest at a contractual rate of 29.8%


Hardship

The claimants claim for financial hardship is based on the following circumstances;

The claimants is in receipt of Income support, Carers Allowance and Child Tax Credits, along with Child Benefit, and this is her only income.

She is in arrears with loans, council tax and hire purchase agreements.


Background

Since 2001 the claimant had been charged over £1300 in overdraft excess and unpaid direct debt fees and following an unsuccesful compaint to Lloyds in September 2007 entered her claim for a refund to Birmingham County Court.

In October 2007 the Bank agreed that the claimant was suffering hardship but that they would proceed to request a stay in the courts. This they did in October 2007 and the stay was granted pending the outcome of the test case.

In November the claimant wrote again to Lloyds detailing the hardship and financial difficulty she was facing, she then submitted an application to amend her particulars of claim and request a lift of the stay.

A hearing was finally set for 22nd August 2008. Unfortunately this hearing was adjourned for circumstances beyond anyones control and was re scheduled for today, 11th September, at 11.50am.

[Amethyst]

Re: Stay lift case being heard today

The hearing today unfortunately, due to an error of the courts, was once more adjourned.

It would appear due to the misplacement of some paperwork by the court, the claim was struck out regarding a fee payment, and neither party was informed.

However an interim payment for the claimant has been agreed with Lloyds. The claim will be reinstated and then stayed pending the outcome of the test case. The interim payment is most beneficial to the claimant and allows her to clear a number of debts.

Following the test case the claim will be dealt with as other claims will be, issues in the Particulars of Claim heard, and the interim payment taken into account.

However the work undertaken on this case will assist other claimants. We would encourage hardship claimants with charges claims against Lloyds that are currently stayed in the courts to contact us.