Claim on your Financial Agreements...?
Can you claim on your mortgage, loan, PPI, car finance or credit
card?
There are many companies that advertise that they can make a claim on your
behalf for one or all of the above products, it would appear that some are good, some not so good and
some are possibly rogues.. So how can you tell?
Here are a few areas that you should check:
- Are they registered by the Ministry of Justice? If not, steer well clear. You can check
to see if they are registered here
- Is their address on the website? Avoid PO Box Numbers.
- Have they had any successes? Do a search on the BBC website, Mail website etc and
see if they have got any articles about claims. You want a company that gets results. Be wary of success
stories on the Claims Companies own website as they can be misleading.
- Fees? This is a difficult one, there are different types of fees
involved. a) An initial "vetting" fee. You will probably be best going
for a company that does this for
free.
b) An upfront fee. This can be from £0 to £700, this should be refundable if the case is
unsuccessful, don't go for too low a fee, it may sound like a good deal but cases can take about a year and how
is the company going to survive if they haven't had much money coming in? It's better to pay, say £500 and get
it back if it fails, then £200 and lose it because the company has gone under. And they
do!
c) Lender fee. This will be £10 or £11 for your file and is not refundable. d) Back end
fee. Again, don't worry if you think this is too high, good solicitors are not cheap, and if you want your
case to win then you need the best working for you. As long as you have checked out the company and they are
reputable, 25% to 35% is
fine.
d) Make sure that you are not liable for any other fees, especially if it goes wrong, legal costs can be
horrendous and you don't want to be paying them. Check the terms and conditions carefully and don't be
frightened to ask questions if you are not sure about anything.
- What is the history on the company you are thinking of using? Claims Management is a
relativley new field so don't expect them to be a long established company. However, they should have been
going for 2 or 3 years and have a previous background in some financial area.
- Do they use a specific Law firm or a panel? Be very wary of Companies that use a Panel
of Solicitors. This usually means that they do not have a specialised solicitor, they take your money and then
advertise in the Law magazines for someone to take on the work. This invariably means that the Solicitor does
not have the required expertise to win your case. Why lose your case when another solicitor would win
it?
Ethics.
You may think it wrong to claim against a loan when it was not mis-sold. However, bear in
mind that the reason that the loan would be unenforcable is because the lender put something in the Terms and
Conditions that is unfair or illegal.
You can be pretty certain that if something had gone wrong your end, the lender would not be worrying about
ethics.
I am sure you have heard about people who have got into trouble with credit cards having their house re-possessed.
Even though the loan was not secured on it.
What is the point of the Law if the lenders can abuse it? Making claims now is the only way we
can get the lenders to get their house in order for future generations.
Products
Old and current mortgages, loans, PPI, car finance and credit cards all have the
potential for a claim if it meets certain ctriteria. Why not find out?
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