Here we go again!
On the 20th June 2022 I filed the following new claim with the County Court Business Centre concerning the circumstances surrounding the sale of a caravan to us in 2013 by Haven, part of the Bourne Leisure empire:-
‘A holiday caravan sold by Bourne Leisure Limited to my wife and I in June 2013 was worth less than the advertised sale price because first year site fees and running costs to the value of £3,446 had been included. This meant that the cash price of £21,995.00, (on which a deposit of £4,400 had been based), was artificially inflated by the inclusion of these extra charges. Also, as we were paying on Hire Purchase, the first year’s extras (including £692 VAT) carried 84 months repayments.
‘Not happy with this situation and other factors we disowned the caravan in 2014 and at the beginning of the 2020 season Bourne Leisure ceased from inflating the cash price in this manner. Had this change of direction occurred when the issue was first raised this matter could have been settled a lot sooner.’
The total of the claim was £9,985.66 (including about eight year’s interest) and I cited as evidence three documents involved in the original sale including the hire purchase agreement. In complete contrast to my application of a mere six pages the resultant response from Hill Dickinson, the solicitors acting for Bourne Leisure, culminated in a “hearing bundle” of 554 pages. The cost of mounting a Defence to my claim and producing this excessively large “bundle” came to £11,805.00. On top of this £550 went on court fees and £2,000 for the services of a barrister from Oriel Chambers. This made a grand total of £14,355.00.
Considering I am a mere litigant in person with a relatively modest claim for repayment of what I believe my wife and I are entitled to, it feels strangely unreal to find myself pitted against a team of six legal professionals whose rates are £350, £290, £230, £175 and £170, and probably a lot more per hour for the barrister’s involvement in this big and very important case. I say big and very important because my claim has to be “struck out” in order to forestall the floodgates of similar claims occurring (as they did with the PPI scandal) should I succeed. Paying solicitors huge fees for this kind of work and passing the cost on to the Claimant (me) is a far better option than having to fork out lots of reimbursements for mis-sold caravans.
Today, 28th September 2022, I have once again been involved in a County Court so-called “hearing” where, as happened in June 2018, my actual claim was high jacked by the solicitors and barrister acting for Bourne Leisure and instead I attended (virtually) their hearing to have my claim struck out. Although I had legally issued the claim I was not allowed to present my case as the hearing was not about the details of my claim but whether I had locus standi to bring it; whether it had already been litigated and whether it was statute barred due to a six year limitation period. Needless to say, my claim was struck out on all three counts and the Defendant (Bourne Leisure) again succeeded in its quest to hide the fact that caravans had been sold on hire purchase with first year site fees and other services charges included as part of the cash price. Curiously, since the beginning of the 2020 season the company no longer does this. Why is this, I wonder?
I cannot go in to further details at the moment as I need to see a transcript of the judgment but I can reveal that the judge reassessed the costs involved from £14,355.00 to £6,814.00 which reveals a lot about the trustworthiness and integrity of Hill Dickinson LLP. As an indication of the sort of thing we have to grapple with I present below a statement from the barrister’s Skeleton Argument which was issued to undermine my new claim:-
'Any such misrepresentation (had it actually occurred) would have been discoverable from the face of the contractual documentation which C's* wife has had in her possession since June 2013.’
As it is my contention that a misrepresentation did take place and that it is clearly "discoverable" by a close scrutiny of the three sales documents I had presented with my Skeleton Argument and elsewhere, I do wonder if the barrister has actually studied the details of the “contractual documentation” involved in the sale? However, I was not allowed to present any of these documents to the judge or to question the barrister.
The saga will continue!
*Claimant’s
