It is extremely difficult at the start of any Liquidation to accurately comment on time scales. In this case there are extensive investigations which need to be undertaken and potential legal claims to pursue. For these reasons, the Liquidation is likely to last at least 1 year. 

A Liquidator is required to provide a progress report within 2 months of the anniversary of their appointment or before closing the Liquidation. However, in this case we realise the need to update creditors more regularly. Therefore, an informal update will be provided on a quarterly basis by email in addition to our formal progress report. Then next update is due on August 8th 2020.

No, at this stage we are simply asking creditors to lodge their claims. If you have already done this there is no need to submit any further documentation.

Our solicitors have written to the SRA’s agents who are holding these records and we are currently awaiting their response.

Until we have had the opportunity to scrutinise the client files, we are not in a position to confirm how claim assets or potential recoveries relating to claims will be treated.

The Liquidation committee are there to represent the body of creditors generally. They will act as a sounding board for the Liquidators when creditor input is required. A key function will be to consider resolutions put forward by the Joint Liquidators, including one for fees.

No. They are there simply to assist the Joint Liquidators and do not receive any preference in the Liquidation.

You can contact the Liquidation Committee by sending an email to enquiries@allansonscommittee.co.uk

There are two ways to look at this question: the market value and the cost of production.

In terms of market value, the answer is yes: this was the going rate for such audit reports and continued to be so until recently. Indeed, even though it is the case that there are more expert report writers in the market today, the cost of a report is, I understand, in the region of £3,000. And this does not include the cost of ATE insurance, which is now typically about £3,000 up-front, nor the cost of lead acquisition, which is now typically over £700, nor the cost of case management, which is normally billed on an hourly basis at law-firm rates.

In addition, the ATE insurer did extensive due diligence on the reports and their cost and signed-off on the figure; that is, specifically agreed that £4,000 was a fair figure and that the insurance policy would therefore cover it as an allowable disbursement.

In terms of cost of production, the answer is two-fold.

Firstly, it is irrelevant. A lawyer may spend an hour thinking and charge £1,000 for this or £100 for this, depending on their stature; arguably the cost of production has been identical in both cases, but the value may be vastly different. It is the market which determines the value.

Secondly, as it happens, in this case the cost of production was actually commensurate to the monetary cost incurred.

This is what we have been reported by the Allansons team:

• the reports were produced by experts in the field.
• the calculation tool was audited by further experts in the field
• the principles of claimed miscalculations were reviewed by barristers with relevant expertise and opinions given as to the chances of success in court (which were high)
• as per my answer to question 4 above, the ATE insurer reviewed the reports and signed them off.

If despite all the above the reports turned out to be faulty then the report-writer’s PI insurance would need to pick up the cost.

They are two facets of the same thing. The audit report is a report that is only possible once the calculations have been made.

These calculations depend on:

1. a decision on the circumstances under which it should be considered that a miscalculation or misapplication of charges is made (this is made by the law firm based on barrister’s advice);
2. “running” a particular mortgage through its entire history of drawdown(s), payments, interest applied, fees applied, etc using the bank’s own terms and conditions, the interest rates of the day, etc and comparing this to the actual history of the mortgage as shown by the lender’s statements (doing this requires specialist software which is purpose-built).
3. using the rules developed as per (a) above to identify the causes of the differences in the two mortgage “histories”.

These calculations are then used to report on the claim value in the audit report.

All the above was undertaken by subcontractors of Promnestris for Allansons.

Yes, the principles behind the reports and the bases of the claims contained in the reports had all been checked by barristers. They reported on the likelihood of success of various arguments as to causes of miscalculation and misapplication of fees etc. It was those arguments to which they attributed a chance of success of 70% or higher that were then used by the expert report writer.

The reason for no progress for the last many months is because of the SRA intervention and the languishing of cases in the care of Gordons, the intervening firm. Before that, although the process had taken longer than anticipated because of the various strategies that the banks employed, a crucial stage had been reached when a carefully selected set of cases were taken to the stage of a part 36 offer being made, and there was a clear strategy for then proceeding once the banks responded or failed to respond in the allotted time to those offers.