In the current financial and economic climate many people have suffered at the hands of their bank. Many feel aggrieved at the way their bank has treated them. There are many groups which are a focus of concern at the way banks behave and there is no shortage of forums which allow bank customers to voice their dissatisfaction at bad bank behavior.
Despite all the bluster, all the focus groups and all the blogs, ultimately the answer to your problem on the day will boil down to who is right and who is wrong according to the law. And there is the beginning of a problem.
Despite the fact that we have centuries of law which generally favours our institutions and banks in particular, the law and Judges are increasingly prepared to accept that banks behave badly and there is now more likelihood that a court will find in favour of the customer than ever before. This is a not a wholesale change in the legal landscape but it is at least a moderate change in prevailing climate.
In order to make the most of your chances you need a lawyer who can best exploit the law, the procedural rules and the prevailing ‘climate’.
Large law firms together will account for most of the legal expertise in the banking field. Those same law firms will always derive significant income from acting for banks. Often it is expressly agreed between an individual bank and a law firm that if the law firm agrees to act for the bank then it will decline to act against not only that bank but clearing banks as a whole.
This does make sense from the bank’s perspective but severely limits the pool of expertise that you can draw on in fighting the bank.
I deal with banking disputes for clients who are not banks. Often banks have behaved badly towards a business and push it over the edge because they know that they have the comfort of a personal guarantee. So it becomes your problem and not theirs. We cannot always waive a magic wand and sometimes the bank does in fact have the upper hand according to the law. However this is certainly not always the case, far from it, and I have selected a team of people that can assist you, based to the following criteria :
1. Established expertise
2. Knowledge of the inside workings of banks
3. Knowledge of banking documentation
4. No conflicts of interest. In other words, no-one acts regularly for banks in general or any particular bank and is not therefore conflicted in acting against banks.
Therefore we like to think that we can offer the same expertise when acting against banks that they have routinely available in making claims against you.
Email me: patrick.selley@keystonelaw.co.uk
