Kirberts finance advice and news

Matrix Jones

Part 36 Offers - Payment Into Court.

If you are involved in civil litigation with a party and is locked into dispute over the value of a claim, for example a personal injury claim, you can make what is known as a Part 36 offer to that other party in the dispute.

It is a tactical measure which is frequently used by personal injury lawyers to resolve disputes over quantum or the value of a claim. If used effectively it can bring the other party in the action to his knees due to the effect it has on cost.

If therefore you are ever involved in a dispute over money as in the case of personal injury compensation and the other party makes a ’Part 36 Offer’ you or your solicitor needs to take this very seriously indeed.

What is a part 36 offer?

So what exactly is a Part 36 Offer? I explain this in some depth in my book ‘The Personal Injury Claims Guide for DIY Claimants’ which also provides other tactics in personal injury claims negotiations.

Basically, a Part 36 offer is made pursuant to Part 36 of the Civil Procedure Rules which were brought into effect in 1998 under Lord Justice Woolf.

Part 36 Payments to County Courts and High Court .

Previously, the procedure existed but was known as a ‘Payment Into Court’ under which a physical payment was made to the court following the offer letter. If proceedings were in one of the County courts then the payment was made to that particular court.

If the claim was of a higher value than the county court limits or it was a case involving complex issues as dealt with in the High Court then payments were made to the Accountant General of the Supreme Court.

More recently you do not need to make a physical payment into court and a suitably drawn Part 36 offer letter is sufficient for these purposes.

The Part 36 offer must be sufficiently detailed to enable the other party to see how the offer is made up. You cannot just state an amount in your offer letter and expect the other party to accept it without stating how you arrive at the offer made.

The offer would not be effective in these circumstances and you would lose the main benefit of a Part 36 offer which is to protect you in respect of costs.

Costs.

Once an effective Part 36 offer has been made the other party in the negotiation has 21 days to respond to the offer. He is not bound to accept your offer and may very well decline your offer and counter-offer with his own Part 36 offer.

If agreement cannot be reached the offers stay on record until the trial of the case.During this time the judge is not made aware of the offers as this would prejudice his decision at trial when awarding compensation otherwise known as damages.

If these offers were to be revealed to him he could favour one or either of the parties and make an award to benefit that party.

Judgment award.

Once the judgment amount is known if this lower than the Part 36 offer by even a penny then the other party must pay all his own costs and those of the party making the Part 36 offer. These costs include the full trial costs and all costs incurred from the date the Part 36 offer was made.

The burden of costs is therefore extremely high for the losing party who fails to beat a Part 36 offer. You cannot therefore afford to ignore a Part 36 offer and bury this in the files for months or years before going to trial.

All Part 36 offers need to be given the serious consideration they deserve at the time they are made.

Visit ThePersonalInjuryClaimsGuide! is a personal injury specialist with over 25 years experience of all types of personal injury claims.

BOSTON - Shareholders in two Fidelity Investments funds on Wednesday rejected a proposal to block investments in companies linked to genocide and human rights abuses.

WASHINGTON - The two largegest United States mortgage finance companies on Wednesday won approval to pump up to $200 billion into the distressed United States mortgage market, the latest step in government efforts to stabilize credit markets and save the economy from recession.

NEW YORK - A federal bankruptcy judge has cleared the way for New Century Financial Corp creditors to vote on a liquidation plan for the former subprime lending giant, court papers show.

NEW YORK - Stocks fell on Wednesday as investors sold stocks to take profits after Tuesday’s Fed-aided rally, while a sharp drop in oil prices drove energy shares lower.

J Suffie

Refinancing a mobile home is a little different than refinancing a regular home, but it can be done. First you need to determine what type of mobile home you have. Mobile homes, manufactured homes and modular homes are all commonly referred to as mobile homes, although, as you’ll see, this is no longer a very proper term.

Manufactured homes are actually the new name for mobile homes, although the term “mobile home” is used much more often than the more accurate and modern “manufactured home”. Under the US Department Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidelines, mobile homes made after 1976 are called manufactured homes. Manufactured homes are made entirely in a factory and built with a steel frame or chassis. They are then transported to the home site. Manufactured homes can be relocated by following appropriate State regulations regarding the transportation of manufactured homes by experienced trucking companies. Manufactured homes often decrease in value over time.

Modular homes are also built in a factory, but are made of the same building materials as a regular home rather than the steel framing of a manufactured home. Modular homes are usually only partially constructed before being transported to the home site, where the remainder of the building process is carried out. Modular homes need to follow the building codes of the location where it’s built. Depending on the design of the modular home you own, it can be very similar in appearance to a mobile or manufactured home, or it can be more elaborate and virtually impossible to distinguish from a traditional site-built home. If your modular home is built well, it should follow the local housing market’s ups and down along with similar traditional site-built homes in your neighborhood.

If you aren’t sure if your home is a manufactured home or a modular home, look for a HUD Certification Label. It is a red metal label that must be attached to the exterior of each section of your home. It has a serial number and has verbiage that describes it specifically as a manufactured home. A single-wide manufactured home would have one label, a double-wide would have two labels and a triple-wide has three labels.

What you need to do to refinance depends on the type of loan you already have on your home. Most mobile or manufactured homes are purchased with a personal property loan rather than a mortgage, although in some cases these homes can be purchased with a mortgage. Modular homes are purchased with a traditional mortgage.

If you have a modular home that you want to refinance, talk to several mortgage companies in your area. Although a modular home falls under the same financing and refinancing rules and regulations as a traditional site-built home, some mortgage companies are less familiar with them and can be thrown off a bit by the terminology. It’s best to find a mortgage company that is familiar with modular homes when looking to refinance.

If you have a mobile or manufactured home, you should be aware that most traditional mortgage companies will be leery of refinancing your loan. In the case of a mobile or manufactured home, there are companies that work exclusively with owners of mobile and manufactured to provide refinancing services. Simply do a web search on mobile home or manufactured home refinancing and speak to the companies about the services they can offer you.

If you are interested in learning more about mortgages and refinancing then please visit our site at http://www.refinancingright.com/ - There you will find a wealth of information to help you get informed on issues related to your home loan.

NEW YORK - Bear Stearns Cos shareholders may be hoping that another suitor will emerge to challenge JPMorgan Chase & Co , but perhaps their best hope of getting a higher price is prying a few extra dollars from JPMorgan itself, analysts has said.

Neil Ebsworth

It is an undisputed fact that the dollar is weak. The trade deficit run up by the Bush administration in financing the war in Iraq and the sub-prime mortgage crisis are just two of the factors that have driven investors from the dollar to its baby sister, the Euro. The resulting effect has been to see a rise in the price of oil above 100 dollars a barrel as the race for commodities in the markets has left currecy traders trampled under the rush to get out of the way. Oil, gold, even wheat seems preferable.

The US economy is brinking on recession, although we have yet to see one quarter of negative growth ( the definition of recession is two quarters of negative growth). Definitions aside, you can feel the mood of anticipation when you talk to realtors in some parts of the country. In South Carolina, a real estate market that has not been hit by as large a correction, as say, California, realtors in Mount Pleasant tell an all too familiar story when they say that they are finding buyers sitting on the fence in a waiting game to see how prices will jump before committing to a purchase.

The mortgage crisis which burst the bubble in the US was quick to spread and the tightening of secondary lending soon put UK mortgage lender Northern Rock Bank in a liquidity crisis that needed a government bailout. In a matter of a month the virus had crossed the atlantic and the UK property market caught the same cold as its never ending climb stalled under a realization that prices were not a never ending staircase. This was something that had not been seen for nearly a generation of home-owners and was 1989 since the fears of mortgage debt being higher than property value had reared their ugly head.

The virus continued to spread. Spanish developers who had been building as fast as they could were soon realising that they had more units than they could sell and the holiday property industry in the Spanish Costas fell victim to the same indecision found in the UK. (Unsurprising really as up to 65% of Spanish property on the coastline of Spain was bought by UK residents looking to invest in a place in sun.

So whilst the world coughs and splutters towards global recession could it be that the Euro could hold the key to releasing the pressure and will we have to wait until the recession bites into European economies before the European Central Bank cuts interests rates? It is certainly no forgone conclusion that a cut in base rates in Europe would take the pressure off the dollar. Certainly the election result in November could see McCain having to fund an even longer exit strategy in Iraq that would push the deficit to epic proportions. Hopefully voters who may have to suffer $4 a gallon at the petrol pumps this summer will alight them to the fact that a democrat may be a better choice for them than more of the same.

A democrat win in November and a cut in European interest rates however may produce a combined effect that would ease pressure on the dollar. The good will feeling normally felt following any election would stimulate the economy in the states and combined with falling oil and gas prices it may be all the economy needs to stave off the recession everyone is feeling. Lets hope!

Neil Ebsworth is co-founder of AMLASpain and Mount Pleasant SC Real Estate. Find similar articles at OMDN