Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

[Amethyst]

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

The letter does sound like a standard 4 week complaint jobby and stick u in the queue for the test case etc. The problem is cause the account shut it doesnt contribute to current hardship and they can't do any of the things they are obliged to under the hardship rules in the waiver....and the hardship rules don't state a refund. Halifax have been refunding people tho so it is worth pushing IMO.

I don't think FOS will help on this one during the waiver because the accounts closed... so think you would be looking at court after the 4 weeks if they don't refund you - I would feel inclined to wait that long so you arent down a court fee just to sit in a queue, and I would reply to the letter saying thank you for considering your complaint, the refund would help as you face repossession etc.

[Amethyst]

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

this the letter

Thank you for your recent complaint. I am sorry you are unhappy about the charges which have been applied to your account. One of my colleagues will carry out a full investigation of your complaint.
Our commitment to you is that we will respond to your concerns at the earliest opportunity. However, we do want to ensure that the issues you raised are thoroughly investigated. If, for any reason, we are unable to respond fully to your concerns within the next 4 weeks we will write to update you of our progress.
If you have employed someone to handle your complaint on your behalf, please note the following:
n Halifax does not charge you to investigate your complaint.
G Halifax will not be liable for any costs incurred if you do decide to employ a
third party to handle your complaint during this review.
D Halifax, in general, will only make payment directly to the account holder(s).
D You may wish to check if the third party firm you are using is authorised under
the Claims Management Regulation.
You will find enclosed a copy of our leaflet, which details how we will handle your complaint. I hope we can work together and find a solution that you are happy with
You have requested information on how we calculate our costs for dealing with these transactions. Please note that we are not obliged under the Data Protection Act to supply this information, and as it is commercially sensitive, I regret to inform you that I am unable to comply with your request.
Thank you for your patience Yours sincerely

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

This is the letter which I received to day. It is a bog standard letter. But interestingly they cannot give me a breakdown of their charges as they are not obliged under the Data Protection Act and it is commercially sensitive - well that is according to them!!

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

A standard response has been received to day, I will post it up latter when I am home and then work out what the next letter will be with your help.

xx

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

Letter and enclosures all enveloped up - will post tomorrow Record Delivery.

xxxx

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

Thanks everyone for your input, and i think the sugested amendments are excellent. But I will as Budgie say leave off the interest %, as we do not really want to highlight it.

I will adjust the letter tonight, then it can be posted tomorrow.

Fingers crossed.

xxxx

[Amethyst]

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

Good point Tanz

[TANZARELLI]

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

Reads well both. I would ask them to confirm in writing that they have recieved the documents you are submitting and also ask for them to either be returned to you or destroyed after they have finished with them and if they choose to destroy them that you are informed as to how this is done.

This is only because I don't trust anyone with personal information given the current climate.

[Budgie]

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

I don't disagree with what Ame has suggested.
In this type of letter, shorter is always better.

No real need to mention the interest rate in your letter as it is already shown on the spreadsheet and I actually deliberately left it off so as not to draw any attention to it.

Budgie

[Amethyst]

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

We are writing to you to request a refund of charges which were applied to our account during the period the account was opened from 1990 to date of closure 2002.

Further to recent publicity covering the High Court Test Case between the Office of Fair Trading and the Banks, we are now aware that these charges maybe considered unlawful at Common Law and Statute.

The High Court has decided that charges applied to our account can be assessed for fairness under the unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulation 1999.

We believe these charges to be unfair as the terms which apply to them fall under the remit of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, schedule 2 –paragraph (e) which states that contract terms which have the object or effect of “(e) requiring any consumer who fails to fulfil his obligation to pay a disproportionally high sum in compensation” may be regarded as unfair.

Additionally, we believe that older charges applied to the account are unlawful penalty charges and as such are recoverable at common law. Precedents for this include, but are not limited to Dunlop Pneumatic v New Garage [1915] AC 79, Murray v Leisure Play [2005] EWCA Civ 963 and CMC Group Plc and others v Zhang [2006] EWCA Civ 408.

If you believe that these charges are not unlawful penalties then we would be grateful if you would demonstrate this by providing a full breakdown of the costs you have incurred as a result of our breaches of contract, in order to satisfy us that your charges really do reflect your actual costs.

We calculate that you have taken £2281.50 in charges and additionally we believe that you should pay interest on these charges by way of compensation. We calculate this interest at a rate of X% per annum totalling £1993.49. We therefore require you to repay a total of £4274.99 as detailed in the attached spreadsheet.

We would further like to bring to your attention our severe financial hardship situation. We understand that our claim meets the FSA’s recent waiver update to the complaints handling waiver and their guidelines on financial difficulty.

Evidence supporting our financial hardship claim is attached as follows :-

Pages 1, 2 and 3 : Documentation relating to a suspended possession order, granted by the court, an arrears balance of £xxxx plus fees of £xxxx including interest. The lender agreed, prior to the hearing, for arrears to be settled at the rate of £xxxx per month in addition to the normal monthly contractual payment amount of £xxxx. Total monthly payment now payable £xxxxxx until MONTH YEAR.

Page 4 : A letter dated 27th May 2008 confirming second mortgage arrears of £xxxx. These arrears are being repaid at the rate of £xx per month in addition to the normal monthly contractual payment amount.

Pages 5, 6 and 7 : This correspondence relates to a final charging order on our residential property dated 11th August 2008 for a total of £XXXXX (include the costs and amount owing)

Page 8 : A gas bill indicating an amount due £172.27

Page 9 : A electricity bill indicating an amount due £321.39

Page 10 : Evidence that a Tax Credit award has been made. Please note that the Child Tax Credit element ceased on 19th April 2008.

Page 11 : Spreadsheet detailing our current claim value as £ 4274.99

Page 12 : Joint personal budget sheet which shows a monthly deficit of £831.



We are both self employed. We also have a dependant daughter who we have to support as she is committed to attending University in September.

Mr Tuttsi has had lengthy periods of illness over the last few years and following two emergency eye operations last year was unable to work for 5 months from XXXXX to XXXXXXX.

This, of course, placed a tremendous strain on the household income.

In addition, Mrs Tuttsi lost a large client last year and it took much longer than expected to replace the lost income.

These related issues added to our overall hardship situation and were contributory factors as to why our mortgage and other repayments fell into serious arrears.

We are currently finding it very difficult to cope during the present economic climate coupled with the real threat of losing our home as a result of the suspended possession order.

This financial situation is putting a terrible burden on both of us and our family and we please ask that you consider our claim together with our circumstances given the current waiver criteria and the banking code.

We look forward to hearing from you within 14 days.

Yours faithfully


Mr x & Mrs x Tuttsi




Few changes, cutting unneccesary stuff mainly as its either irrelevant or on the documents attached. Couple additions of info I think should be in there - dates Mr T was off work and the rate you are claimimng interest at.

JMO.

Ame
xx

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

This is the finished amended version of the letter which I think is ready to go. If anyone has any comments or suggestions to add please let me know ASAP as I would idealy like to get this one posted tomorrow.

Also, is the address I have is Pitreavie Bus Pk if this is not correct can you let me know as I have not lodged a complaint previously.

I would also like to thank Budgie for his time in looking over the letter and adding his take on it, it is very much appreciated.

__________________________________________________ _____________
We are writing to you to request a refund of charges which were applied to our account during the period the account was opened from 1990 to date of closure 2002.

Further to recent publicity covering the High Court Test Case between the Office of Fair Trading and the Banks, we are now aware that these charges maybe considered unlawful at Common Law and Statute.

The High Court has decided that charges applied to our account can be assessed for fairness under the unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulation 1999.

We believe these charges to be unfair as the terms which apply to them fall under the remit of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, schedule 2 –paragraph (e) which states that contract terms which have the object or effect of “(e) requiring any consumer who fails to fulfil his obligation to pay a disproportionally high sum in compensation” may be regarded as unfair.

Additionally, we believe that older charges applied to the account are unlawful penalty charges and as such are recoverable at common law. Precedents for this include, but are not limited to Dunlop Pneumatic v New Garage [1915] AC 79, Murray v Leisure Play [2005] EWCA Civ 963 and CMC Group Plc and others v Zhang [2006] EWCA Civ 408.

If you believe that these charges are not unlawful penalties then we would be grateful if you would demonstrate this by providing a full breakdown of the costs you have incurred as a result of our breaches of contract, in order to satisfy us that your charges really do reflect your actual costs.

We calculate that you have taken £2281.50 in charges and additionally we believe that you should pay interest on these charges by way of compensation. We calculate this interest to be a total of £1993.49. We therefore require you to repay a total of £4274.99 as detailed in the attached spreadsheet.

We would further like to bring to your attention our severe financial hardship situation. We understand that our claim meets the FSA’s recent waiver update to the complaints handling waiver and their guidelines on financial difficulty.

Evidence supporting our financial hardship claim is attached as follows :-

Pages 1, 2 and 3 : Documentation relating to a suspended possession order, granted by the court, and recent evidence supplied by the first lender, xxxxx Mortgages confirming, in their Annual Statement, an arrears balance of £xxxx plus fees of £xxxx including interest, relating to the monitoring of the arrears. Please note that the lender agreed, prior to the hearing, for arrears to be settled at the rate of £xxxx per month in addition to the normal monthly contractual payment amount. We would like to add that repayments are governed by the libor rates which are substantially higher than the variable interest rates generally in use.

Page 4 : A letter dated 27th May 2008 confirming the present second mortgage arrears of £xxxx These arrears are being repaid at the rate of £xx per month in addition to the normal monthly contractual payment amount.

Pages 5, 6 and 7 : This correspondence relates to a charging order over our residential property which was finalised in court on 11th August 2008 where it became a full charging order instead of an interim charging order. The circumstances here show that the claimant is the xxxxxx School Ltd. Originally there was a debt due to the school relating to our daughters private education several years ago. The actual amount due to the school at the time she left was in the region of £xxxx. We made some payments but fell into arrears when my husband was ill. The school obtained a consent order for repayments to be made, but this failed due to continued illness and the School obtained judgement. We have still not been able to clear this debt which has led to the charging order. You will note from the application for the charging order at page 7 that the amount owing is £xxxxx including interest and that further charges will accrue. Also, the Court awarded costs relating to the full hearing, amounting to £xxxx which is to be added to the above figure.

Page 8 : A gas bill indicating an amount due £172.27

Page 9 : A electricity bill indicating an amount due £321.39

Page 10 : Evidence that a tax Credit award has been made. Please note that the child Tax Credit element ceased on 19th April 2008 at the time when my daughter reached the age of 20. Working tax credits still continue.

Page 11 : An updated spreadsheet showing our claim value as £ 4274.99 with Halifax at the present time.

Page 12 : A Joint personal budget sheet which shows a monthly deficit of £831.

We are both self employed. We also have a dependant daughter who we have to support as she is committed to attending University in September. Mr Tuttsi has had a lengthy period of illness over the last few years and following two emergency eye operations last year was unable to work for 5 months. This, of course, placed a tremendous strain on the household income. In addition, Mrs Tuttsi lost a large client last year and it took much longer than expected to replace the lost income. These related issues added to our overall hardship situation and were contributory factors as to why our mortgage and other repayments fell into serious arrears.

We are currently finding it very difficult to cope during the present economic climate coupled with the real threat of losing our home as a result of the suspended possession order.

This financial situation is putting a terrible burden on both of us and our family and we please ask that you consider our claim together with our circumstances given the current waiver criteria and the banking code.

We look forward to hearing from you within 14 days.

Yours faithfully


Mr x & Mrs x Tuttsi

[Budgie]

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

OK, I have emailed letter and spreadsheet back to Tuttsi.

Will leave her to post them up on here when she is ready for comments and suggestions etc.

Regards Budgie

[Amethyst]

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

Lol I just came to look at your letter as Bud said it was good, and its not on here Hummph.

Will have a look when its up.

[Budgie]

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

I have now drafted a letter and sent it to Budgie and have already sent the spreadsheet. Just waiting his approval.

LOL Tuttsi, you don't need my 'approval' for anything.

I have the spreadsheets and your draft letter and will apply a few tweaks here and there for you and then email back to you for posting up on this thread. I won't be able to finish off my bits until ths evening though !!!

Hopefully then others will also be able to add some comments etc and we can end up with a combined group / team approach.

Best Regards Budgie

[TANZARELLI]

Re: Tuttsi V Halifax ( 18 year claim )

Cool post it up when ready.