Court Bundle For Dummies

Court Bundle For Dummies

Don't take that too personally - it's meant to be funny!

Ok, some background - as things have progressed - we have had to move along in our thinking about things -

• Last autumn almost no one had to do a court bundle.

• Earlier this year a few had to do it.

• Now it is really getting more and more common.

A court bundle may be required for a court appearance, the directions from a judge to provide this information or as a result of you having asked for the draft order to be made a direction - if the judge has approved it - the court order needs it to be done.

This is a good thing!!!!

Once the court bundle is filed an offer is usually very quickly forthcoming. so we just have to get our heads around it.

Initially it can seem very daunting, so as I've seen a good few needing this info recently and anticipate many more - I've put together a step by step approach.

Here is my court bundles for dummies:

Basic Court Bundle:

This comprises the following:

a) your schedule of charges.

b) your statements showing the charges.

c) A Statement of Evidence

d) All the statutes and decided cases on which your claim relies.

e) All the correspondence between you and the bank

f) AND AFTER THE LLOYD'S WIN - LET'S BE SURE THERE'S A COPY OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS IN THE BUNDLE.

This whole thing runs to around 200 pages and should be done in triplicate: one copy for you, one for the court and one for dg – that’s 600 pages of copying – LEAVE IT UNTIL YOU KNOW FOR SURE YOU NEED IT. If an offer comes in from the bank and is accepted you wouldn’t need it. Really leave it until you have to do it to meet the deadline set by the court!

Let's take it step by step

a) Your Schedule of Charges - easy! (making sure each charge has a date, a name from the statement and amount) Alternatively, the list of charges which the bank provided under your S.A.R (Subject Access Request)

b) Statements - easy! (if you got your statements off the internet - use them) You only need to send the statements with charges on them, with the charges highlighted/circled

c) Statement of Evidence This can be found here. Choose the one appropriate to your bank's defence. Either the 'Service Charge' or 'Genuine Pre-Estimated'

One or two banks don't plead in detail as to why their charges are not a penalty, only that they were debited in accordance with the T&C's, etc - ie Barclay's. If this is the case, this statement would be the most suitible - here

Don't just copy it - make it personal to your claim.

Have a look at this link : Nawanda Vs HSBC for an examole of how to fill in the blanks and get it right. (Although Nawanda was using the statement as amended particulars of claim - the idea remains the same - she had to do the statement and she did it, then there was a bit of comment from garyh - so in the end it is just right)

d) The Court Bundle For this, I'd just submit the whole of the Basic Court Bundle, ie, UTCCR's, UCTA's, SOGA, case law, etc. Follow the link to Basic Court Bundle and download the zip file - it's a lot of copying.

If you have trouble opening the zip file GuidoT has kindly offered the legal bits of this in a pdf format See this post here.

Also: In the Litigation Section - you can run off a copy of settled claims

e) Corresspondence A copy of all the paperwork between you and the bank since you've started this (but nothing marked without prejudice).

f) Terms & Conditions The T & C's - preferably from around the time you opened your account.

There is a library of T & C's This is new and is a work in progress, more and more are being added all the time so check here: Terms & Conditions

and one final note on the whole thing: take a look at how corn flake did her table of contents as it looks pretty good and would be a good reference for anyone doing their bundle:Court date set for 18th June t 12.00 getting worrried now any advice? ( 1 2 3) post 17.

here's one last bit - each party must provide its documents and written evidence (court bundle) in a single bound paginated (that means with pages numbered) bundle clearly marked on the front with the case number and names of the parties.

ONE LAST WORD OF ADVICE: CHECK THE PAPERWORK REQUIRING THE BUNDLE - GET IT IN ON TIME - IT COULD BE FOR THE HEARING, 14 DAYS BEFORE THE HEARING, 14 DAYS FROM THE DATE OF THE LETTER BEING SENT OR WHATEVER - READ IT, READ IT AGAIN AND THEN PUT THE DIRECTIONS FROM THE COURT ONTO YOUR THREAD SO WE CAN READ IT. NO GOOD MISSING THE DATE.