Financial Claims – Help for Families During the Credit Crunch.
There are several types of financial claims which can be made against banks and lenders who have profited excessively from consumers in the past years, and to the tune of 9 Billion pounds this year alone.
This new and fast growing financial claims industry allows customers to audit any finance agreement taken out before April 2007 to assess whether it has issues which could make it unenforceable and therefore possibly have the balance wiped out! All agreement must follow the rules laid down in the 1974 Consumer Credit Act. Many agreements fail to do this. This means you may be able to claim to wipe out your credit card and loan balances. It doesn’t matter if you are in arrears or following a debt management plan or IVA. You can still claim to have your card wiped out.
The types of agreements which are potentially unenforceable are;-
Your agreement must be obtained from your lender before you have a definitive answer as to whether you have an unenforceable contract or not and this will cost you £1.00 usually. It is only after a full audit that you will know if you have a claim or not. Some companies mislead clients by saying they offer a free audit when in reality they ask the same preliminary telephone questions that all companies ask to establish if it is worth considering a full audit or not. For example was the agreement taken out prior to April 2007? What is the balance? Different companies claim for different remaining balance amounts. Who is the lender? Some lenders have more of a reputation for writing unenforceable agreements than others. This is not a full audit.
Back end fees
Some companies charge fees at the completion stage of your claim. Be sure to ask if this is the case for you. Some charge 30% while some charge a fix amount of £1000.Most companies don’t charge any fees.
Other fee structures
I have come across some peculiar fee structure whereby some companies offer to handle your claim for you paying them six months credit card repayments. Others offer to take over your debt for you and leave you debt free in six weeks. I would not take these seriously. There are plenty of straightforward ways to clear your cards for a reasonable fee, no misleading promises of a free audit and certainly no back end fees or requests to pay the claims managers your monthly repayments instead of the lender.
Time scales
The process is a long one relying on the co-operation of your lender which of course is not likely to be forthcoming. The legal to and fro-ing will take up to a year. There is no way to avoid this so claims of speedy conclusions, at the moment, are false. The lenders use all sorts of tactics to delay matter for example refusing to send the copy of the agreement to your claims manager but only dealing with you and completely ignoring the requests made by your solicitor.
Be patient, persist and it will pay off in the end.
