RAC mangled my car and won’t cover the repair

I am having problems with RAC. The issue started after I left my university accommodation in Bournemouth last March to go home for the Easter break. When I filled up my car at the local petrol station, the key got stuck in the cap. I finally got it out after half an hour by using some WD40. I wiped the key clean and put it in the ignition, turned it all the way round but the car wouldn’t start.
The key then got stuck in the ignition. I finally got it out, but the steering locked. I called the RAC and a breakdown worker came 25 minutes later who managed to start the car with a screwdriver.
Unfortunately the steering was still locked, so it couldn’t be driven. The RAC worker brought out a mallet and started hammering at the ignition barrel to try to open it up and unlock the steering. The guy spent about 30 minutes hammering away at the ignition barrel and other parts of the steering column, then resorted to yanking my steering wheel to the side to try to snap the pin that was locking the steering.
This was also unsuccessful, leaving me with a steering column so damaged you couldn’t put the key in the ignition any more. The breakdown worker said I’d have to get my car recovered. This wasn’t possible that day so I had to return to my student accommodation for the night. Having started my journey at 4.30pm on Saturday, I eventually got home on Sunday at 10.30pm.
My local garage had to replace the whole steering column at a cost of £342, but the RAC is refusing to accept responsibility for the damage, saying that there were no supporting images to substantiate my claim, even though I had provided several photos of the RAC person working on my car and the subsequent state of the steering column. Instead it has offered me £50 for distress.
You sent the same photos to me, and it is fair to say your steering column was completely mangled. The Financial Ombudsman Service had already told you that your RAC policy was not regulated and it could not help you, so I forwarded the photos to the RAC and asked it to refund and compensate you. The next day it offered you £550 to cover the cost of your new steering column, incidental expenses and a bit extra for all the stress you suffered during that long journey home.
Your mum emailed me to say: “I know it is a cliché that students are poor, but in this case it is — relatively speaking — true. My son and his siblings have all had to pay for their cars by themselves. Paying to fix the steering column was a massive dent in his finances through no fault of his own.
“We were feeling rather desperate when the RAC came up with its first response, abnegating all responsibility for damage to the steering column and paying £50 as compensation. So I cannot tell you how utterly thrilled we were with the outcome, you have done a truly great thing.”
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In 2015 my wife bought a flat as part of our retirement planning. The conversion had been carried out by a local builder who still owns the head lease. Soon after my wife bought the flat, she and others started to experience problems with water coming down inside the building and through the brickwork. The age of the building, combined with poor maintenance, meant the back of the building needed completely repointing.
We spent years trying to get the builder and the freeholder to admit they were responsible for fixing the problem. In the end there was no alternative but legal action, which we started in 2018. It took three years to grind through a tribunal and mediation until we got a court date in 2021. The initial case in Chichester was a resounding win for us with a positive judgment on remedial work and costs. The builder appealed and the case was reviewed in Brighton. The judge overturned much but not all of the verdict relating to the builder, but not the freeholder.
We were awarded £90,000 plus interest and expenses, which was paid into the court. Then on April 18 this year someone in the Brighton county court office wrongly instructed that sum to be paid to one of the defendants, not to us.
Neither we nor our solicitors have had any joy in getting the court to rectify the error, even though its operations manager has acknowledged and apologised for the mistake. We are now being pushed from pillar to post by the litigation group of the government legal department.
The court office paid money to the wrong person and has acknowledged its mistake in writing so should immediately send the £90,000 plus expenses to us, the claimants, and recover the money from the defendant in their time, not ours.
I couldn’t agree more. This astonishing situation is entirely of the court office’s making, and you should not be disadvantaged by its huge mistake. I asked the Ministry of Justice to pay you the £90,000 now and recover the funds from the defendant as and when it could.
HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) said: “We apologise to the claimants for this administrative error. We’re working with all parties to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. A judge has ordered the defendant to return the funds and the process to reclaim that money is ongoing. We’ve taken steps to prevent this happening again.”
It has also suggested that you take legal action to get the money back. This would no doubt end up in your being even further out of pocket for a mistake which HMCTS is responsible for.
Thanks to your experience, Brighton county court has implemented additional safeguards, including a mandatory double-check for all financial orders. This requires approval from both a team leader and a senior manager before any payments are made. However, this doesn’t help you — the Ministry of Justice has proved impervious to requests for you to be paid in advance of the defendant returning the £90,000 to Brighton county court.
I recommend that you make a formal complaint to HMCTS about the administrative error made by Brighton county court and its failure to deliver the £90,000 damages to you. If you are unsatisfied by its response, you have the right to take your complaint on to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. It can ask — but not force — an organisation to take action to put things right for you, which could mean getting the organisation to acknowledge its mistakes, apologise to you, or pay you back if you have been left out of pocket because of what happened.
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I’ve been sent round in circles by Virgin Money over an “adjustment” debit for £2,830 on my account for a non-existent transaction.
I raised the issue in May this year with a member of the complaints team and after nearly two months of chasing, she discovered that it was supposed to be related to a deal to buy £197,000 worth of euros at a rate of €1.1671 to the pound at Virgin Money’s Croydon branch in 2022. Virgin said this deal was then cancelled at a later date, either because of a change of mind or due to my account being frozen. It then — confusingly — said that I tried to buy the euros back, but was unable to get the same rate, and there was a £2,830 charge.
The shocking thing is that I did not book or cancel a deal, nor try to buy back currency at a later date. I did go to the Virgin Money branch in February 2022 to ask about sending money abroad, but I did not agree to proceed with the transfer and the bank couldn’t process the transaction in any case as it was lacking crucial information. Instead, I told staff to transfer the money to my Santander account in the UK, a sterling transfer. Virgin Money did not carry out this transfer, but called me for details of my Santander account that same day and then blocked my Virgin Money account straight after the phone call.
At the end of September Virgin responded to my complaint, confirming that the debt of £2,830 still applied. Four days later I made a data subject access request asking for data on the three alleged transactions — the supposed deal to buy €197,000, its subsequent cancellation and then my supposed instruction to buy the euros back. As expected, Virgin came back to me on on October 17 saying “we have been unable to locate any documents or Pin entry records which contain personal data associated with the following transactions”.
Surely if I did not make any such transaction I should not be charged for one? Please can you help me get a refund of my £2,830?
Virgin Money told me that you didn’t want to proceed with the euros purchase that you had asked about because of the length of time it would take for Virgin to complete the necessary checks on the payment, but it still charged you a currency exchange fee because the exchange rate had been “booked in”.
It said: “The dispute centred around how far the transaction had progressed before [the customer] decided not to progress with the payment. After reviewing the case, we can see that charging the fee was not appropriate and therefore we have upheld his complaint.”
It has apologised, given you a full refund of your £2,830 and offered £775 in compensation.
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My partner and I (both female) had two children via sperm donor in 2003 and 2005. My partner gave birth to the children. We were not married or in a civil partnership and we have separated. We covered inheritance tax issues by making joint wills and taking out insurances against possible tax liabilities.
I had court-ordered parental rights and responsibilities for the children, but when they reached the age of 18 this connection fell away.
I seem now to have no legal connection to my children and I am worried about how inheritance tax might affect them. Is there any provision I can make to establish that they are my direct descendants or children? I have financially supported them and continue to do so and it seems incredibly unfair that they are not recognised as being my children.
While your children can benefit from your standard inheritance tax (IHT) allowance of £325,000 like any beneficiary inheriting money from your estate, they will not be able to claim the property-related additional allowance of £175,000 because they have no “lineal” connection to you.
Andrew Kidd from Clintons solicitors says lineal descendants for the purposes of the “residence nil-rate band” of £175,000 must be the adopted child of the deceased (the RNRB provisions allow an adopted child to be treated, exceptionally, as the child of both their natural parents and their adoptive parents), foster child of the deceased or a child for whom the deceased was a guardian. Some stepchildren will also qualify.
Kidd said: “Your reader is in the same position as those without children, for example where estates are going to nieces and nephews, godchildren or children of friends. Parliament framed the legislation such that they were excluded from benefiting from the £175,000 allowance.”
As both your children are over the age of 18, you are no longer able to adopt them, so the best thing you can do is continue using insurance written in trust (this keeps it outside your estate and free from IHT) to cover any tax bills they might incur on your death, and to make full use of the tax-free gifts you can make during your lifetime.
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