Claim Bank Charges Back - Helping you to reclaim Unfair Bank Charges!

Small Claims Court

If the amount you are claiming is less than £5000 (without statutory interest), then you can use the Small Claims Court.

If your claim is over £5000, then it's a good idea to either drop the figure to £5000, or file a claim for each account with the bank, if no account has charges of more than £5000. Alternatively, you could use a specialist service to claim your charges back on a "No Win, No Fee" basis, so they pay the court costs, such as Unfair Bank Charge who will do everything for you in return for 25% of the charges you get back. This is because claims over £5000 are sent to be dealt with in a normal court, with higher fees.

Note that the £5000 maximum for the Small Claims Court only applies to the UK, as does the Money Claim Online web site.

If you are in Scotland, your maximum claim for the Small Claims Court is £750 (and you can only claim back 5 years of charges). If you are in Northern Ireland then the maximum claim for the Small Claims Court of £2000. You will need to apply to the Scottish or Irish Courts to file your claim.

How to Make a Claim

If you are in England or Wales, you can make a claim online at Money Claim Online, which is run by Her Majesty's Court Service.

Note that once you have read this page and are ready to file your claim, we have a Complete Guide to using Money Claim Online, which describes step by step how to file your claim on the Money Claim Online Website.

A claim can cost between £20 - £120, depending on the amount of bank charges you are claiming back:

Up to £300 - £20 Court Fee
Up to £500 - £50 Court Fee
Up to £1000 - £80 Court Fee
Up to £5000 - £110 Court Fee

(Note these may be subject to change)

If the bank file a defence and you need to have a hearing allocated, and the claim is for over £1500, you will have to pay another £100.

These costs are added to the claim, so you will get them back if you win (and no one is known to have lost so far!).

The costs can be paid by credit or debit card, but if you have neither, you can go to your local county court and get the paperwork to file the claim and pay there (You will need form N1, which you can download in advance from Her Majesty's Court Service). If you are on state benefits, or the fees cause you financial hardship, talk to the court first as you may be able to have the fees waived.

Once the case has been filed, the bank has 14 days to acknowledge and submit a defence. If they don't, then you can ask for a judgement against them for the full amount of your claim.

There are a number of terms that you need to be aware of whilst you are submitting you claim:

• Claimant - This is you as you are making a claim against the bank
• Defendant - This is the bank, who will possibly be defending the claim. You need to use the full name of the bank, which can be found on the banks website, or on the banks headed paper.
• Defendants Address - You need to use the address of the Head Office of the bank, which again can be found on the banks website, headed paper, or in our list of Banks Registered Addresses.

Details of the Claim

On the Money Claim Online web site, you will need to give details of your claim against the bank.

Unfortunately, they don't give you much room to do this, with a limit of 1080 characters (including spaces) and 24 lines.

The following text can be used to give details of your claim:

The Claimant has an account [YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBER] with the Defendant, opened [DATE ACCOUNT OPENED] 2. Since [DD/MM/YY - DATE OF FIRST CHARGE] the Defendant debited charges and interest in respect of purported breaches of contract. 3. Defendant is aware of all details as a list of charges has already been supplied. Another copy will be sent. 4. Claimant contends: (a) The charges exceed the Defendant's losses caused by the breaches; (b) The Term permitting the Defendant to levy such charges is unenforceable under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and at Common Law. 5. Claimant claims: (a) return of the amounts debited of £[TOTAL OF CHARGES]; (b) Interest per S.69 County Courts Act 1984 of 8% - £[TOTAL INTEREST AT DATE OF CLAIM] continuing at 8% until judgment or settlement at a daily rate of £[DAILY RATE OF INTEREST]; 6. Alternatively, if the charges are a fee for a service, then they must be reasonable under S.15 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982. 7. Costs allowed by the Court.

How to Calculate the Rates of Interest

The TOTAL INTEREST AT DATE OF CLAIM can be worked out by using the spreadsheet in Step 2 - Calculating your total Bank Charges, which calculates the interest at 8%.

The DAILY RATE OF INTEREST for the above text is calculated by multiplying the total value of the claim by 0.00022.

For example, if you were claiming back £500 worth of charges, then you would calculate: £500 x 0.00022 = 0.11, so the daily rate of interest would be 11 pence or £0.11.

Once you have submitted your Claim

After you have submitted a claim using the Money Claim Online service, it takes 5 days for the claim to be served to both you and bank, and the dates for deadlines start from this date.

There are a number of outcomes, depending on whether or not the bank responds to the claim:

• The bank settles the claim in full. They won't admit that they have done anything wrong, but as a "goodwill gesture" they will settle in full and give you interest charges and court fees on top of the original charges.
• The bank don't respond at all, which is the most common scenario, and it means that you will win the case by default 14 days after the claim is served. You can then request a "Judgement by Default", which you can do online through the Money Claim Online service. You should do this as soon as you can after the 14 day period the bank had to acknowledge the claim.
• The bank acknowledge the claim, but don't submit a defence. The bank has 14 days after the claim is served to acknowledge the claim, and then they have another 14 days to put in a defence, which they usually fail to do (as they can't justify their costs). After the 28 days, if the bank still has not put forward a defence you win by default, and should request a "Judgement by Default" through the Money Claim Online web site.
• The bank defends the claim. This rarely happens, but is possible, and is usually to try to make you settle the claim. You now need to fill in a form called the "Court Allocation Questionnaire", and return it to the Court. You will then get a Small Claims hearing date, however this hardly ever happens as you've shown the bank you are serious and they will usually settle at the last minute before the case is heard, rather than having to defend their costs in court.

What to do if the Bank doesn't pay you after you have won your claim

Occasionally, even though you have won your claim in Court, the bank still doesn't pay up.

If this happens, then you are entitled to send bailiffs to the bank to claim your money. You can do this by applying for a "Warrant of Execution" using form N323 through the Money Claim Online web site. Once this has been granted, the bailiffs can go to the bank and remove property with a value up to that of your claim.

Related Links

Our Complete Guide to using Money Claim Online