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PPI Claims are regulated by the Financial Services Authority (“FSA”) and as such your entitlement to recover is based on a regulatory claim. As a result your claim is non-contentious and does not need to go to court. A direct result from this latter fact is that you do not need to instruct a Solicitor to pursue the claim for you.
You should also note that you are entitled to pursue the claim yourself without the need to incur costs. However, whilst this is an option it is not necessarily the best option available to you.
The alternative is the instruction of a Claims Management Company who is very often more experienced than Solicitors in this type of claim. When seeking representation you must ensure that your representative is regulated by the Ministry of Justice in respect of regulated claims management activities and that its registration is recorded on the website www.claimsregulation.gov.uk
The claims process is begun by reviewing your loan and or credit card agreements to establish whether or not PPI was applied to the same. In the event that PPI was applied, a calculation can be carried out to value your claim and provide you with an indication of how much you are entitled to recover from the finance company.
A letter of complaint is then sent to the finance company. Under regulations imposed by the FSA the finance company must respond to your letter within 8 weeks. If they respond negatively, you have the right to refer your claim to the Financial Ombudsman Service (“FOS”). In 95% of cases the usual result of this referral is that the finance company will be told to settle your claim and will also be fined! Therefore, the most likely reply will be favourable with what they will describe as
a “goodwill or without admittance or without prejudice” offer. This is usually derisory in that
it is considerably less than that which your claim is worth.
The banks will write to you and your appointed representatives who will not accept this offer and - you should not accept it either. YOU ARE ENTITLED TO A FULL REFUND INCLUDING INTEREST SO DO NOT ACCEPT ANYTHING LESS. They may even send a payment to you. DO NOT CASH THIS PAYMENT BECAUSE SUCH MAY BE CONSIDERED AS ACCEPTANCE OF THEIR OFFER.
Negotiations to settle your claim will then begin. This may take a short while but once you are happy with the offer coming close to or meeting the amount that we would expect you to recover then payment can be made.
In total, this whole process takes about 6 months. In some cases it can take less but in others it can take more.
If you use the services of a Regulated Claims Management Company they will normally charge you on a no win no fee contingency basis. The current market rate is 25% of the total recovery and saving to you.
