In response to my request under the Freedom of Information Act to the Ministry of Justice for the number of claims issued by the two firms of solicitors since I informed HFC that the collection charges were unlawful, in 2003, they provided the following information. The number of claims issued was 91,689. With an average collection charge of £1,500 this means that approximately £137,000,000 in unlawful charges was added to accounts. This doesn’t included cases where proceedings were not issued but where collection charges were added, probably a similar number.
Year | 2002 / 2003 | 2003 / 2004 | 2004 / 2005 | 2005 / 2006 | 2006 / 2007 | 2007 / 2008 | 2008 / 2009 | 2009 / 2010 |
Claims issued by Restons | 2733 | 3369 | 3460 | 5761 | 9004 | 6757 | 6511 | 8992 |
Claims issued by | 2362 | 1137 | 2307 | 1646 | 2981 | 2373 | 17475 | 14821 |