Case transferred to Admiralty Court

[brock00]

Hi,

This is my first posting. After a long correspondence with NatWest over £1285 of illegal charges in the past 6 years I lodged a claim in the Small Claims Track in November. Last month, they made an offer of £750 if I dropped the action, which I declined.

Two days ago I had a letter from Bromley county court saying that the claim was being transferred to the Admiralty & Commercial Registry for the attention of Judge Mackie. No other information or explanation. I am surprised as it is relatively small small claim. I tried to phone the court in Bromley but they have had their 'currently experiencing a high volume of calls' message on all day (and every call went dead after 3 minutes).

Does anyone know why cases like this are being transferred? Have other cases been transferred from Bromley?

Also, the NatWest's allocation questionnaire says they are calling an 'expert witness'. Is this another bit of routine intimidation?

[roboraver]

My case was also transferred from bromley, but because of the power cut today the court has not been open the whole day, so I am waiting to ring the court tommorrow. I think a group of cases will be heard on one day (I think the 20th is the next batch), if you read some of the other posts in this section then it will give you a better idea about this type of court and what the next process will be (waiting for a court date & sending in a CMI sheet).

[brock00]

Thanks. I haven't had a date yet, but I look forward to seeing how the cases go on the 20th. I shall try to get to the court for the hearing.

[roboraver]

Should I be getting worried, my case has not arrived yet at the Admiralty but it was transferred on the 2nd of Feb..............

[roboraver]

It has arrived now (phew) so will have to wait for directions....

[melly407]

Hi
My case was also transferred from Bromley and i to had problems getting through to Bromley Court. So i rang the London Mercantile court and spoke to a very friendly lady who told me that due to a high level of bank charge recoveries (especially from Bromley) They are transferring to the London court to ease the work load/back log from Bromley. It can take up to 3weeks to get a court date, the lady said to ring after this time if you had still not heard anything. Im due in court Monday coming. Bricking it at mo!!
Good luck with your claims
Hope this helped.

[hannanshah]

Originally Posted by brock00

Two days ago I had a letter from Bromley county court saying that the claim was being transferred to the Admiralty & Commercial Registry for the attention of Judge Mackie. No other information or explanation. I am surprised as it is relatively small small claim.

Don't be surprised. My claim for £40 against Barclays has reached this stage (though it looks like they are finally going to settle!).

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...ansferred.html

[brock00]

Sorry I've not posted for a while as I've been away. However NatWest finally caved in and settled in full, before the Admiralty court had even listed my case. I got a letter with the usual guff - 'we are confident that we would win but the legal costs....' etc - with a cheque for £1505. A lot of thanks due to CAG who gave me the confidence to turn down their 'final' £650 offer, against the unanimous advice of my entire family. Donation to follow.

[Bookworm]

FANTASTIC news, brock00!!!

It is scary, but of course, experience has shown that a transfer to the Mercantile Court is in effect the surest way to get your money, as the banks desperately do not want to give a judge the chance to make the bank charges officially unlawful!
Poor judge Mckie has now been trying for months to get one of those cases in front of him, and he has all my sympathy, it must be soooo frustrating for him...

CONGRATULATIONS again, and feel free to do a "I told you so" dance on front of your whole family, you deserve it!

[roboraver]

To be quite honest with you all, I would really like my case to be heard by his honour so a judgement can be passed as it would really help everyone who is currently claiming.
The problem that I can not find a solution to once I finally get my court date is that Barclays would want to settle and if I refuse then I could incur costs.

[BankFodder]

There will be a case management hearing.
Make sure that you attend and make sure that you ask the judge to accept the draft disclosure order which we have on this site.

He has adopted it before and even commented that it was very intelligently put together.

[Delboy01]

Bromley court told me one of my claims paperwork has been passed to London, but I havnt heard anything yet. is just me or do they appear to deal with claims differently there than they would in the CC?

Is it a different process or what? cos I read there were different forms to fill in and a case management hearing???

Scuse my lack of knowledge

DELBOY

[Calculator]

Delboy,

Yes there will be a different form to complete, but nothing to get uptight about.

I have personal experience of Mercantile Court, but not Admiralty, although from what I have read, I think the process is similar on both. As far as I am aware, both require a Case Management Information Sheet (CMI sheet) to be submitted by the claimant to the Court prior to the Conference/Hearing. A copy is also to be served by the claimant on the bank. See the thread 'Mercantile Court Guide' at top of this forum. The thread 'Mecantile Court Guide' actually deals with (1) Commercial & Admiralty (CPR 58 and 61) and (2) Mercantile (CPR 59). (CPR stands for Civil Procedure Rule). You need to be sure which CPR your case is under - it should say in the letter that you receive from the Court. Be careful because the CPR 58 CMI sheet is different to the CPR 59 CMI sheet.

There is a good chance that the bank will settle before the Hearing, possibly when they receive your completed CMI sheet.

See previous threads on this forum regarding Admiralty and Mercantile and Directions Hearings etc.

[roboraver]

Delboy, I would reccomend calling the court (very nice actually and told me to submit the CMI sheet to them and the bank), done this yesterday and got a call about 30 min ago from the bank wanting to settle, am just waiting for confirmation on a few things. As calulator has mentioned, just make sure you fill out the correct form (I used a CPR59)