Stating Your Case

We see all types of summaries and correspondence connected with complaints, disputes, and claims against financial institutions.

These are often produced by individuals who are not used to writing long letters, or summarising detailed or technical matters - and letters can be complicated by the emotional factor of arguing about homes or businesses, or resisting demands for substantial repayments.

These notes will help you organise your thoughts and the facts of your case into a logical summary which can be used to brief us, to claim against or complain to the bank, or to ask for help from other agencies.

Before you go any further, take the time to prepare the following documents. It will be much easier to brief organisations like ours, to complain to your bank, and it will help you to get the facts organised in your mind and sound confident when arguing your case.

  1. PRESENT POSITION: Start with a statement of who you are and what your current position is. Ignore the history, the emotion, whose fault the whole situation was, the piles of correspondence, and anything else which has happened.

    What is the bare current position? Are you facing a County Court Summons, a letter from the Collections Department, repossession, bankruptcy or what? -This will help everyone -including you- assess how urgent your position is.

    You should not need to refer to anything except the last letter or so which you have written or received.

  2. SUMMARY: Unfortunately to be able to summarise the dispute you have to complete the full picture first, so that you can delete all the unnecessary details to arrive at the summary.

    This part of your story should not exceed one A4 page. Be ruthless in deleting details to get to this stage, but complete the next part FIRST.

    Summaries written before the full story is completed usually miss out important steps.

  3. FULL STORY: Many people don't know where to start, or how to translate months of correspondence into a coherent and logical story.

    There is no easy way to do this - use pen and paper, a word processor, dictation, or whatever you are comfortable with.

    Find a quiet spot where you can concentrate on the task for a reasonable time.

    Take regular breaks, make sure you eat and drink properly, and if necessary allocate a few hours each day for as long as it takes.

    But make sure you discipline yourself and anyone else involved to do the job properly, once. Keep a full record of the time and resources involved - you should be able to recover your expenses if you are successful in your claim.

If necessary start with the headings 'Beginning', 'Middle' and 'End' written on a sheet, and fill in the facts around this skeleton.

DON'T delegate the job. No one will look after your interests better than you. Unless you are willing to invest time and effort, you won't be able to take your claim much further.

DON'T get upset or too involved - remember you are summarising only the facts not the rights and wrongs of the case.

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