Company held my cash for several months

by darkfireblade Sat Aug 27, 2022 9:42 pm

Ok I kind of at a point where im happy to move on from this, but still since this is a particularly scummy company, I am tempted to still take court action against them, mainly to just piss them off. Basically in 2020 I paid £500 for ground rent on my then property, these guys kept my money but issued legal proceeding for mon payment because i didnt quote a reference number when paying, they then refunded me then got there scummy solicictors (brethertons) to extort more money out of me. From feburary till september thought this compnay held my £500, just wondering if I can maybe charge them interest, i know its going back a while now, but i finally have the time and funds. Anyways any advice would be good to hear. take care everyone.

by **assassin** Sun Aug 28, 2022 4:26 am

Yes you can as this would be a civil tort and the County Court has a daily interest rate and if you make the claim then be sure to insist the court applies its interest rate to the alleged debt which of course it will.

by darkfireblade Mon Aug 29, 2022 8:38 pm

Ah right thanks for the response, not going to lie i`m only doing it out of spite really to annoy them. Any ideas on how much evidence I will I need, cause I only really have the bank information. I`m likely only going to chase them for a small amount tbh.

by flyingfish Tue Aug 30, 2022 1:33 pm

You just need enough evidence to meet the civil "balance of probabilities", ie to show that your account is more likely to be true than untrue. What you will need from the start is a summary of what happened, when and in what way the company was in the wrong, and your loss from that wrong doing. Base any claim for interest on 8% annual, that is the accepted default rate.

by darkfireblade Tue Aug 30, 2022 5:52 pm

I pretty much know what they will say, they will claim they send me letters asking for payment, which I`m pretty sure they never sent. I think they will also argue their lawyers wrote to me too, although at that point all dealing had to be done with there scum sucking parasites lawyers and not them. From my prospective the fee was paid feb 15th, they I think will argue it should have been January.

Anyways they still had the money for months while claiming I had not paid, my argument would be that I lost my job in march 2020 due to the plandemic, which contributed to me falling into debt with a friend.

Any thoughts on weather or not this will cut the mustard in court would be appreciated. If I do take it to court I`m planning on asking for the court fee and as they had my cash 6 months at 8 percent I`d be asking for another £40. so it will be like a £60 claim haha. Still guess its only worth pursuing if I have a decent chance, Iv actually took these clowns to court before so they don`t like me.

by **assassin** Wed Aug 31, 2022 4:19 am

No, wrong wrong wrong as your defence will be I never received any correspondence and they are alleging to have sent *** pieces of correspondence and none has arrived which clearly shows them to have NOT sent the correspondence, sent the correspondence to a diferent address which is their error and their fault, and they are asking this court to believe they sent all this correspondence and not one piece of it was received.

Never make excuses to as why wou didn't pay as this is an admission of you defaulting and being guilty of something and untrustworthy.

You can use your previous win as proof of their failings and incompetence.

by flyingfish Wed Aug 31, 2022 10:09 am

Forgive me but the narrative is still not quite clear. Is this more or less correct?
1. You made payment in February
2. They didn't acknowledge receipt, and raised legal proceedings
3. Then they refunded you original payment
4. Then pursued you again for payment, presumably you paid at that time?

At first glance it's not clear where you suffered a loss other than the stress of dealing with that shower. Did they charge penalties for late payment, or costs? Were you actually liable for the £500 originally paid? Was there a time that they held more or your money in addition to that £500, and delayed handing it back to you? Maybe a sequence of rough dates would help, dates at which payment became due or was claimed to be due, and dates where payments were made or refunded.

by darkfireblade Wed Aug 31, 2022 10:27 am

Well yeah my defence will be I got nothing form them, which I didn't. I was charged pretty heavy penalties (several times more than the original fee) for none payment at the start of september 2020. I was liable for the £500 but with no correspondence I just paid it via bank transfer as it was an annual payment I used to make.

They instigated proceedings against me in march I still have the e-mails form them so I can get exact dates, when I found out they where perusing me I sent them proof the fee was paid. Start of September they refunded me the amount and took me to court for far more. The payment was due in January but I know they needed to have sent me a demand for it, which they didnt so I paid later on to try and avoid any problems later on.

Hope that sheds a bit more light on the situation.

by darkfireblade Wed Aug 31, 2022 10:31 am

* I paid the fee before the court papers arrived, but I did return them to the court to say I had paid the demand. Anyone know if that counts as court action ....

by flyingfish Thu Sep 01, 2022 12:51 pm

darkfireblade wrote:* I paid the fee before the court papers arrived, but I did return them to the court to say I had paid the demand. Anyone know if that counts as court action ....

Yes it does, but from what you say they should have discontinued the claim once it was clear that payment had been made.

Can you set out a rough sequence, for example ..
(1) Payment due January 2020 no invoice received
(2) Payment made Feb 2020, no reference number used as no invoice received
(3) Claim raised against you Mar 2020 for non payment, discontinued as payment had in fact been made
(4) Payment refunded in Sep 2020 - what reason given?
(5) New court proceedings raised for payment and penalties?

Then what happened, did the case go to a hearing, get discontinued, or did you settle?

by darkfireblade Thu Sep 01, 2022 1:19 pm

Ah right, well the last time I took them to court, it was because I did not recognise who the refund was from, so I took them to court as I returned the £500, upon realising what it was I asked for it back numerous times and they did not respond. So i settled on that one at mediation. I will check all the e-mails and give a bit more of a detailed pattern.

by darkfireblade Wed Sep 14, 2022 5:24 pm

Sorry for the slow reply.

Payment was made 15 February 2020.
Apparently fees where claimed in february for none payment from the 22nd of febuary.
Solicictors where brought in on the 5 th of march.
I herd nothing until receiving a letter in july dated feb, saying i hadnt paid.
my then mortgage provider wrote to me explaining what was going on.

I then got an e-mail claiming to be from some paralegal saying pay within 14days. I said I would like a break down of this, which she didnt send me until after the 14days, and it wasnt a proper one.

Her next e-mail basically said you owe us another £900 for not obeying my last e-mail. So at that point I paid, I then received court forms.

by darkfireblade Wed Sep 14, 2022 5:25 pm

No reason was given for the refund, it just said on the reference advice confirms. The court proceeding I believe where the same ones, they did not raise a new case.

by darkfireblade Thu Sep 15, 2022 5:44 pm

Not sure if this plays a part, but the reason they used for the action, was not quoating a reference number which is there protocol. However thats not in the contract, not sure if that makes a difference.

by flyingfish Fri Sep 16, 2022 11:11 am

I must admit I am still not clear on all this. Originally you asked about raising a claim against the company. Then you said they had taken you to court. Then you seemed to be saying that you have raised court proceedings against them on more than one occasion. That's trying to read between the lines but "the last time I took them to court" certainly suggests that you've done so more than once.

Maybe the best way to clarify would be to set out what loss you have suffered, and how their negligence or malpractice caused this loss.

by darkfireblade Fri Sep 16, 2022 6:33 pm

Well yeah its a complexed situation, after paying them on the 15th of feb, they ran upna bill of just over £1600 on fees including the £500 they claimed I owed them. When I told them I had paid they refunded me. As I had no idea who the money was from I sent it back.

They then claimed the fee was unpaid because they had refunded me, and the demand was £2562, claim via e-mail. I paid, but they still had my £500 I had returned to them in error, and despite numerous attempts to get them to refund me that they ignored me, so I took them to court for my time spend trying to get it back. They did refund me just before I made a court claim, but I still procceded anyway. That was a claim for them holding my money form august 20 to janurary 21. I ended up settling in mediation, although on hind sight I think i let them off the hook.

by flyingfish Sat Sep 17, 2022 8:26 am

If you've already raised court proceedings against them, then you can't do so a second time for the exact same matter. Litigation can't be repeated just in the hope of getting a better outcome. Or strictly I suppose you can, but as well as the certainty of having the case struck off you could also face costs if it is found unreasonable for you have raised the case. To be honest it makes a nonsense of the thread, which started off asking about how to claim against the company without mentioning that you've already done exactly that.

by darkfireblade Sat Sep 17, 2022 9:21 pm

Well that's fine I was just wondering if anyone could have enlightened me, as I assumed this site was about spreading knowledge, and the idea of the thread was to find things out via dialogue. My aim was not to take them to court again for the exact same thing, they held my money on two separate occasions, so the idea was to claim for both times they held my money. Perhaps while I didn't make it clear I had claimed before which il accept I should have said, the whole point of the thread was to find out if it was possible or not. I think its safe to say it best to just move on now, which is fine. I appreciate the comments, and the honesty however it sounds like in terms of the final reply a little bit more willingness to meet people where they are on things would not go a miss. Take care.

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Re: Company held my cash for several months

Re: Company held my cash for several months

Re: Company held my cash for several months