Bank charges victims made to wait for autumn ruling

This means a further delay before the reclaiming bandwagon can start rolling again. However, those in financial hardship can still have their claim heard.

Even if you're not in hardship, it's worth getting your claim in before the floodgates open again. This is likely given bank charges have provisionally been deemed unfair.

Find out how to reclaim your cash in our Bank charges and Bank charges hardship guides.

Test case latest

The latest installment in the saga saw the banks launch an appeal in the House of Lords last week against an earlier decision which gave the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) the power to determine the fairness of charges. That hearing ended on Thursday.

The OFT, which has provisionally said it thinks charges are unfair, today confirmed it expects a result of the appeal in the autumn.

Rumours were circulating that we may know the result in July, but this now appears unlikely. The reason for the delay is that a judgment takes six to eight weeks, yet the courts break for summer at the end of July.

Over six million bank charges victims have now downloaded a reclaiming template letter from MoneySavingExpert.com.

Many victims, some of whom have been charged up to £39 a time for going just a penny over their overdraft limit, have had their claim on hold since July 2007.

Back then, City regulator, the Financial Services Authority, announced the test case would be launched. At the same time, it told banks they could sit on claims pending its result, unless the claimant has serious financial problems.

Huge campaign

Martin Lewis, MoneySavingExpert.com creator, says: "The number of template letters downloaded shows the sheer scale of the campaign to reclaim bank charges, and as the test case returned to court, the number of downloads again increased.  

"There have also been large numbers downloading the specialist template letters for those in financial hardship – not surprising when more and more success reports are coming through. "Yet the bigger picture is still screaming out with a wider injustice. Why is bank charges reclaiming on hold for the majority?  We have a binding court precedent that charges are subject to fairness laws, and few deny in that case they're not unfair. 

"However, banks are still allowed to levy the charges, but their customers can't reclaim them – surely that's the wrong way round?"

Further reading/Key links

Reclaim your charges: Bank chargesReclaim if you've financial problems: Bank charges hardship