My Financial Tips

Background To Reclaiming My Bank Charges

Reclaiming Unfair Bank Charges has been in the news a lot of late and there are a lot of people are reported to be being very successful with their claims. But are you entitled to claim? Do you have to use a solicitor?

Are solicitors required to reclaim bank charges?

If your claim isn’t going to be complicated then there’s probably no reason to get a solicitor involved when you are reclaiming bank charges. At the very worst, most of the claim can be dealt with through the small claims courts and probably from your own home if the banks play ball.

But if your claim is complex or you know you just won’t bother reclaiming yourself without help, then the outlay is possibly worth it. But look for a no-win no-fee solicitor and check what their fee will be.

If you have been charged unfair charges, make sure you claim them back them from your bank.

Whether you go it alone or appoint a solicitor, or start off yourself and seek professional help if the bank uses delaying tactics on your case, remember that it is important to continue your claim. If you stop, lose interest or just forget to go to the next step, then the bank has won. If this is going to be you, write down the steps in your diary or get in touch with a solicitor who advertises support for reclaiming bank charges.

During a 2006 ruling that credit cards should only charge no more then a ?12 annual fee the Office of Fair Trading declared that certain bank charges were unlawful as well as being unfair. This produced the opportunity for people to reclaim unlawful bank charges, charged within the previous 6 years.

British Law does not permit a penalty clause. This means that charges incurred for going overdrawn etc must be directly related to what it has cost the bank to deal with the situation. So if it costs ?2.50 to send a computer generated letter, then the charges must not exceed ?2.50.

Yet when customers go overdrawn in the past, banks have automatically sent customers a standard letter telling them they are overdrawn whilst incurring charges from ?20 upwards. This is usually in addition to the interest charges imposed for unauthorised overdrafts or being overdrawn.

There are other unlawful bank charges and these are being successfully challenged by customers with banks refunding these unlawful charges. These unfair charges include:

• Returned Cheques
• Unpaid Cheque
• Account Misuse
• Fee For Exceeding Authorised Overdraft Limit
• Overdrafts
• Unarranged Borrowing
• Unpaid Standing Orders
• Unpaid Direct Debits
• Card Misuse
• Late Payment Of Credit Cards
• Late Payment Of Store Cards
• Late Payment Of Catalogue Purchases

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