Hello

I have written to the Building Society (B&B) asking for them to explain how they arrived at the figure that they are claimig is owing to them, I asked for two independent valuations , Today I recieved this reply.

"Independent valuations obtained at the time of the sale of the property after repossesson do not constitute personal data under the data Protection Act 1998 and therefore fall outside the scope of the Subject access provissions.

How am I to know that they got the best possible price for the property, and do they have to show proof of the sale of the property, as it is it's just their word against mine....?

-- Lisa Fox (lisa_foxy@yahoo.com), April 18, 2002

Answers

This is actually good news Lisa.

You've caught them being obstructive in writing. You need to write to them and say that they will have to supply the valuations as part of Disclosure should they sue you for the alleged shortfall so you are asking them to supply the valuations now. Say nothing else in the letter, just that.

Why? Because you've caught them not helping you negotiate a settlement. You've caught them close to being in breach of Civil Procedure Rules (CPR). The trick now is to use their lack of enthusiasm for supplying these valuations against them by helping them bring themselves fully into breaching the CPR.

Your gain from this is that if they try to sue you for the alleged debt you can claim you tried to deal with this without resorting to the court but the lender refused to abide by the CPR, so you'd like your costs awarded against the lender. Which likely makes sueing you unprofitable, which means they don't sue you, which means you end up paying nothing instead of £2,500.

How do you use this? First thing to do is write the letter as described above. Be polite, be to the point.

When they refuse to supply the valuations, just write back asking for them again, pointing out that they will have to supply them as part of Disclosure anyway.

They'll have easily had access to those valuations if they wanted to supply them. So you have to ask yourself why they refused, given that being obstructive allows you to turn the CPR against them.

Probably because they have no plans to sue you for the money they are asking for.

Good luck

Lee

-- Lee (repossession@home-repo.org), April 18, 2002.

Lisa, I SARN'd the Halifax and obtained two valuation reports for the sale of my repossessed flat. My advice to you is to be persistent, but remain polite and stress that you are trying to deal with their claim but are unable to do so without a full breakdown of how they arrive at their figure, including supporting evidence. For example, did they authorise repairs to be carried out prior to sale, and if so, can they produce copies of these bills? I fail to see how they can claim that valuations obtained by them with the sole intent of re-selling your repossessed property, and contained within your mortgage / customer file fall outside the scope of the DPA. Be persistent and throw the onus on them to provide full details. Anything they can't or won't justify you should deduct from their claim when you negotiate. My experience so far has been that the advice on repossession contained on this site is sound advice. Follow it.

-- Gordon Bennet (arsenewhinger@hotmail.com), April 18, 2002.

I also received 2 valuations from the Halifax with no problems at all, be persistent and they should send you these.

-- (tequilaslammas@yahoo.co.uk), April 19, 2002.