|
Post by wightknight on Mar 20, 2019 17:37:45 GMT
One thing that puzzles me is that, if the claim is being brought on a no win no fee basis, the claimant's lawyers must think there's a good chance of success. Yet there's also been talk that the claimant is instructing the lawyers to act in a way that's contrary to the lawyers advice. All seems very odd. Aren't both assertions just speculation? Or is there some evidence in the preceding 133 pages (please don't make me look!)? Also the possibility that the claimant (being an impecunious student who owns several companies and properties etc) does not wish the source of funding for the legal bid to be public knowledge so is more than happy for such theories to be spread?
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Mar 20, 2019 11:03:46 GMT
It shows you how costs could quickly escalate when attempting a claim against 5000 defendants. That's £30000 just on stamps. The claimant better be sure of their case and lodge a very sizable deposit before proceeding. Assuming a modest £2000 - £4000 average legal expenses per defendant, we arrive at £10 - £20 million with a corresponding deposit to match that. I have no idea if i'm in the right ball-park with these figures ! I assume the court must decide and realistically estimate in advance how much expense some 5000 people might realistically incur in a case of this complexity and longevity including allowing for an unknown proportion of the 5000 individuals instructing multiple law firms independently and thus incurring significant costs, which when aggregated would be huge! I guess it depends on how many defendants instruct legal firms separately, plus other factors I have not even considered. My estimate may well be at the low end of the range of the deposit needed. It won't be that extreme as the Judge has the power to order defendants to use just 2 or 3 separate firms to keep costs down. Not sure if this can affect your right to defend yourself in court though, but then costs would not be a big factor in that (but case management would be).
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Mar 20, 2019 8:50:09 GMT
Do we get to claim back the postage. Special delivery is awful expensive I see no reason why not. It is a justifiable expense to ensure receipt of form when circa 5000 will be returned in a short time span. It shows you how costs could quickly escalate when attempting a claim against 5000 defendants. That's £30000 just on stamps. The claimant better be sure of their case and lodge a very sizable deposit before proceeding.
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Mar 15, 2019 11:30:41 GMT
Given that the injunction preventing the sale of the property was removed some time ago, was any conclusion ever reached about why this property isn't on the market? Seems prudent to me. It might be that the original loan contract gets upheld, hence it can continue. If sold we wouldn't realise the book cost (being as usual an inflated cost based on developed value, not current value). So if we sold it and a judge ruled the loan contract should continue, Lendy would probably have to compensate the borrower at book cost rather than the sold price. So, not with taking the risk.
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Jan 4, 2019 12:39:56 GMT
Hi Squeaky99; I'm in for roughly the same amount as you. Have a good read at the last 20 or so pages of this thread. I've come to the conclusion of .. do nothing unless a claim is made, then hopefully the experienced members on here can assist in what the next steps are after acknowledging the claim. The whole debacle is still beyond me but throwing more money at representation seems silly. I'm doing my best to be zen-like and hopefully it will all blow over. Just contact them via the email provided on the letter and they'll tell you all the above. Probably best not to have that info in public on here.
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Dec 24, 2018 21:27:48 GMT
Notwithstanding lawyers must be ecstatic to initiate and continue the ping pong fees handling such a novel claim, It is without any shadow of a doubt that once the High Court of the Mother of all democracies see common sense, which generally they do when this sort of perceived ‘scam’ comes up against logic, this case I predict will be kicked into touch before it can go much further. I and others perceive this as ‘fantasy’ financial scamming - ie on a par with boiler room crimes. What fact counts for us lenders is the DEFAULT of original property/ land loans. The borrower originally discussing a follow up development loan with our lenders agent, is nothing whatsoever to do with us property / land lenders at this or any other juncture, since we never lent on that basis. It seems ridiculous to me. It seems more logical to resolve whether the claimant is in default or not. If in default then all the other more complex questions do not need to be answered. Obviously the arcane logic of court procedure is beyond me!
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Dec 24, 2018 21:25:39 GMT
Did all lenders get the HCR letter? Could be as simple as providing a scan of that as verification. I have not but my investment in this loan is tiny so maybe it's not worth a letter. Ah, Ok, so not all investors got one, although I only just got mine so maybe it's taking a while to through the list! The size of the investment shouldn't matter as we are jointly and severally exposed.
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Dec 24, 2018 15:43:55 GMT
But, if the borrower is also a lender....? The name of the borrower, related companies and directors is fairly easy to find on the net. There is not much more that can be done. The borrower has much more information than us at this point anyway.
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Dec 24, 2018 15:27:16 GMT
We are not against private boards in this case or others such as for example the Collateral situation; and would be quite willing to facilitate things from our side. However, how do you verify the identities of genuine lenders? I can see no other way of verifying the Lenders in this case/ loans other than asking Lendy to do so. If they were willing to co-operate then we could come to a similar arrangement to that with Assetz Capital where AC verify that a forum member is a genuine AC investor and are then given access to the AC Private Board.
I might add that Lendy have been approached about private boards in the past (including by forum staff), and have not been willing to collaborate, perhaps they might consider it in this case?
Confirm lenders by asking each person to export and forward a copy of their excel loanpart history from the Lendy website. As long as admin immediately delete them, and on the basis that no one publicly post their export, any potential non-investor isn't going to have a clue what the spreadsheet even looks like, much less create a facsimile. Investors could even remove or blank out the column with financial figures before forwarding. Did all lenders get the HCR letter? Could be as simple as providing a scan of that as verification.
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Dec 24, 2018 10:19:21 GMT
The Woman in (the) Red
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Dec 23, 2018 12:38:55 GMT
Thanks for the clarification. Cheers
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Dec 23, 2018 11:26:59 GMT
...I'd also add that with regards to surety of costs, it is mentioned in the joinder judgement, so you might want to google search and read that. I would post it here but I understand that would be against forum rules.
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Dec 23, 2018 11:25:04 GMT
I'm a small investor with <1000 in the two loans. I have not received a recent letter, but that's possibly because I signed up with HCR some time ago, when Lendy told us about the potential legal action. Being somewhat anxiety prone, and not educated in legal matters etc., I signed up with them in anticipation of things taking a while and going (even more) pear shaped. They are currently setting up a web portal for discussions and this will indeed be vetted since you must prove your ID before joining. In my position, the fees seem reasonable...hiring a team of lawyers on your own would be too expensive...the more people that sign up, the more £££ we have to fight this nonsense. When we win the case, the borrowers would have to pay our costs anyway. Perhaps any legal experts here may know if the court would look at the borrower's availability of the needed funds before considering the case. In the same way, I wonder if when we answer the claim, instead of bothering to repossess the properties, we should just counterclaim for all our losses and expenses, so that the court can order the borrowers to pay up from any of their undoubtedly many assets. Anyhow, the other point is, I think, that when the HCR portal is up and running, we will begin to get definite answers from qualified legal people, instead of the admittedly useful and well meant opinions here. finally, I'd comment that the borrowers are experienced property developers, and would obviously know that funds are released in tranches as a development proceeds in order to control the LTV / security. They also know the terms and conditions, namely that surveyors for Lendy must have access to the sites and that any documents required by Lendy need to be completed. They made multiple breaches of these terms which clearly defaults the loans ; they have breached the contracts with us, and we are entitled to our money back and expenses. £18M ? the cheque is in the post, LOL I've only just received the letter and written back to HCR, so I have no idea of the fee structure. I would assume that the portal they are setting up is only for paying clients, which may not be all the lenders by a long shot. I'm hoping when they tell me their fee schedule, that they will outline hows fees could reduce if greater numbers sign up, seeing as most if not all advice will apply equally to each lender. I would be disappointed if there set fee that doesn't reduce on more members signing.
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Dec 23, 2018 11:12:21 GMT
All of which would be somewhat of a moot point if (as I assume is fairly likely), the borrower had a pound in the loan..... All the more reason for the lenders to have sight of the full list of parties to the case!
|
|
|
Post by wightknight on Dec 23, 2018 10:48:00 GMT
I'm not in this loan but sadly have a fair bit stuck in L and am watching this with horror. Without L's assistance, is there a method anyone can think of that other lenders could use to screen people into those that have been in L since this loan went live and those have not? If there is such a method, then I agree with many other posters that either a private forum on here or a private facebook group or some other private discussion group should be set up asap. If nobody can think of such a method, perhaps L themselves could be persuaded to assist ? It just feels wrong for all our thoughts to be aired publicly. We are not against private boards in this case or others such as for example the Collateral situation; and would be quite willing to facilitate things from our side. However, how do you verify the identities of genuine lenders? I can see no other way of verifying the Lenders in this case/ loans other than asking Lendy to do so. If they were willing to co-operate then we could come to a similar arrangement to that with Assetz Capital where AC verify that a forum member is a genuine AC investor and are then given access to the AC Private Board.
I might add that Lendy have been approached about private boards in the past (including by forum staff), and have not been willing to collaborate, perhaps they might consider it in this case?
I myself would be grateful if you could facilitate this. Perhaps Lendy's role could be made easier simply by each prospective member of the group writing to Lendy to request that confirmation of being a lender in the loan (by confirming the email address perhaps) be sent to you. Alternatively, given that the list of lenders and email addresses has been disclosed to the borrower, is there any reason why the full list shouldn't be disclosed to all parties to the case - hence one or several vetted lenders could use the list to verify members?
|
|