Bank of Ireland increase differential on tracker rates

Bank of Ireland increase differential on tracker rates

10:32 AM, 28th February 2013, About 12 years ago 1862

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The story of the Bank of Ireland decision to increase to the differential (interest rate margin) on  tracker mortgages started on this forum when a professional landlord contacted Property118 within minutes of a letter from Bank of Ireland landing on his door mat. What ensued was outrage from landlords and affected residential mortgage borrowers. The story was quickly picked up by the National Media as it wasn’t just the 13,500 affected borrowers who were worried.

Will this set a precedent for other mortgage lenders to follow?

Property118 reacted by using funds donated to The GOOD Landlords Campaign to underwrite the cost of a barristers opinion on the legality of the Bank of Ireland’s actions. The remainder of this thread,one of the most read and most commented threads of all time on Property118, continues to tell the story as it unfolds.

If you want to skip the story and cut to the chase simply CLICK HERE

Of the 13,500 affected borrowers, 1,200 have had the decision reversed by Bank of Ireland. With additional support and pressure we believe all affected borrowers can and will see justice done.

___________________________________________

Lee, a professional Landlord asks, “help! I have just received a letter from the Bank of Ireland stating they want to increase the differential on my tracker rates.

I have 12 mortgages with the Bank of Ireland previously Bristol and West. I have been on a base rate tracker of 1.75% above base, but now Bank of Ireland are using some fine print claiming they have to recapitalise and saying the ‘new differential will be 4.49%.

How can I fight back?”

The original policy wording seems to be:

6 INTEREST

Charging interest at a tracker rate

(j) Unless we change the differential (if any) under condition 6 (n), we will not change the tracker rate unless the base rate changes.

(m) in condition 6 (n):
– a “positive differential” means a percentage which we add to the base rate to arrive at the tracker rate; and a “negative differential” means a percentage which we subtract from the base rate to arrive at the tracker rate.

(n) We may reduce a positive differential or increase a negative differential at our discretion by giving you not less than seven days written notice. This means that we can change the differential in a way that is favourable to you.

The above seems to indicate that they can reduce the rate in my favour, but not give them the right to increase it. Am I correct?


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Baggers

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13:25 PM, 4th March 2013, About 12 years ago

Would be very interested to see the Residential Mortgage conditions 2001 Edition 2 (England and Wales), as it was not supplied to me when I took out my residential mortgage in 2003. Satement in my B&W documentation that this should have been provided by my financial advisor, quite clearly if it has such wide ranging implications to my mortgage agreement it should have been provided by B&W as it formed part of the contract.

The terms of caluse 6m are important as the

The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999

SCHEDULE 2 INDICATIVE AND NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST OF TERMS WHICH MAY BE REGARDED AS UNFAIR

1. Terms which have the object or effect of–

j. enabling the seller or supplier to alter the terms of the contract unilaterally without a valid reason which is specified in the contract;

The clause 6(o) as quoted:

(o) We may reduce a positive differential or increase a negative differential at our discretion

Is clearly in breach of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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13:42 PM, 4th March 2013, About 12 years ago

@Baggers - I agree but it goes deeper than that. Some experts are reading into this clause that "differential" relates to the base rate and NOT the tracker margin. Therefore, this condition could be read as follows:-

The bank may choose to charge less that the Bank of England base rate plus the agreed tracker margin if it chooses to do so at any time and may also increase the rate charged back up to the Bank Base Rate plus the agreed tracker margin but may not charge more than the Bank Base Rate plus the tracker margin.

If that's proven to be the case we are onto a winner but I want a quialified lawyer or barrister to share that opinion here.

Failing that we have other useful arguments including unfair contract terms and also the fact that Irish Nationals are not affected which, to my way of thinking, will be in breach of other judgements made by the European Court of Rights.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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13:42 PM, 4th March 2013, About 12 years ago

@Baggers - I agree but it goes deeper than that. Some experts are reading into this clause that "differential" relates to the base rate and NOT the tracker margin. Therefore, this condition could be read as follows:-

The bank may choose to charge less than the Bank of England base rate plus the agreed tracker margin if it chooses to do so at any time and may also increase the rate charged back up to the Bank Base Rate plus the agreed tracker margin but may not charge more than the Bank Base Rate plus the tracker margin.

If that's proven to be the case we are onto a winner but I want a qualified lawyer or barrister to share that opinion here.

Failing that we have other useful arguments including unfair contract terms and also the fact that Irish Nationals are not affected which, to my way of thinking, will be in breach of other judgements made by the European Court of Rights.

Darrell G

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13:54 PM, 4th March 2013, About 12 years ago

I dont agree these are exceptional Circumstances!Bank Base Rate has been at the current rate since March 2009.If a business cannot manage its own finances correctly to be profitable, the business goes Bankrupt or enters administration. Its not the customers responsibility to bail a business out of mistakes made by poor management

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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14:10 PM, 4th March 2013, About 12 years ago

I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier! I've invited Ben Reeve Lewis to comment on this thread. Ben teaches Housing Law! Check out some of the previous article's he's posted here >>> http://www.property118.com/index.php/author/ben-rl/

Darrell G

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14:26 PM, 4th March 2013, About 12 years ago

Also, Maybe all the BoI bankers bonuses should be recalled first for their part in this fiasco? Doesn't seem fair that over the years, millions of pounds has been filtered out for the bank bosses & now its saying their strapped so the customer pays for BoI mistakes by hiking up this ambiguous 'Differential' which by the way has never before been implemented. i.e for the last 9 years of my agreed 'Bank Base Rate tracker' has been 1.75% above bank base. therefore the 'Differential' was 0% & now its 4.49%. Thats a very, Very big one off jump from the outset. Its unfair, mis sold & a very poor lack of transparency.

Richard Kent

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14:54 PM, 4th March 2013, About 12 years ago

The quote seems to be offering you some future potential "favour"
When you read it you could conclude the following......

The original quote reads............

(n) We MAY reduce a positive differential or increase a negative differential at our discretion by giving you not less than seven days written notice. This means that we CAN change the differential in a way that is favourable to you.

It is interesting that this does NOT state that we WILL ONLY change the differential in a way that is favourable to you.

But It seems to be silent and implicit in its meaning that we CAN change the differential in a way that is UNFAVOURABLE to you.

Baggers

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15:37 PM, 4th March 2013, About 12 years ago

@Mark Alexander

The definition of the diffrential as far as the contract is concerned seems quite clear as it is sated in the t&c's

(m) in condition 6 (n):
– a “positive differential” means a percentage which we add to the base rate to arrive at the tracker rate; and a “negative differential” means a percentage which we subtract from the base rate to arrive at the tracker rate.

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15:51 PM, 4th March 2013, About 12 years ago

To baggers, there are other sub clauses for various exceptional circumstances as well, I dont know what legally takes precedence. I just quoted the 6(o) clause rather than re-type them all as its seems to be a catch all.
I have sent Mark a photo copy of the entire booklet which he will be in the process of uploading to this sites library, so you can read all the fine print. Ive read a fair bit of it now and my head is spinning, you probably need a legal mind to interpret it, to real world scenarios.

neils26

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17:02 PM, 4th March 2013, About 12 years ago

From reading these posts and seeing examples of the Clauses, the BOI case seems very tenuous.

A 'class action' would be the way forward, with first step an 'Injuction' to prevent the BOI changing the terms until the case has gone through the legal process and a court has properly ruled (remember how the Banks spun-out enquiries into their various rip-offs for years ? - bank charges, ppi, interest rate swaps, and numerous other issues of daily mis-selling...)

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