Hi Everyone sorry it’s been so long since my last post-but it nearly was. If not for the Grace of God I would not be here writing this comment. The result has been that my practice of Kingfishers Specialist Property Lawyers has ceased to trade however by popular demand I will continue with the Blog but my comments cannot be taken as legal advice and cannot be relied upon as such they being merely my personal opinion. If advice is needed then you must seek this from your own attorney lawyer financial adviser or accountant or other appropriate adviser.

Now to the subject of this comment. How have the difficulties and errors made by the Banks so far known to have had problems or been involved in activities which may have misled the public and authorities affected or otherwise our Trust in these institutions?

In regard to the problems experienced by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and National Westminster Bank (Nat West) these I hear were as a result of software updates which resulted in the system becoming corrupted due to not being able to update receipts and payments from customers and others. This lasted for about a week but its impact on the private and Business sector has yet to be quantified.

What is clear without any doubt there will be claims against the Banks running to many thousands if not millions of pounds since people will have been prevented from moving into their properties for the time period that the systems were down and without question their sale and purchase contracts will have a provision for interest in the event of the completion not happening and in addition compensation(usually but not exclusively Hotel Accommodation, Clothing and additional removal expenses and legal fees) which without agreement between the parties will be settled through the Courts.

The damage of course will not be limited to just property transactions but Business sales and other financial matters. Unfortunately these will take some time to be calculated but what is transparent is that the users of Banks will now be very wary of trusting them without cast iron guarantees and assurances.

What I am surprised about is that there did not seem to be any mechanism in place to deal with such a catastrophic failure and this was something I was suggesting to the Banks as a prerequisite to completing transactions using what is known in the profession as CHAPS(Clearing House Automated Payments Systems). It is just as well that a centralised payment system was never implemented by the Government and HMLR since then every transaction will have been affected rather than just those where RBS or Nat West were involved.

Once again thanks for reading and following my posts until next time have a great weekend