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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michael murphy

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12:16 PM, 22nd August 2013, About 11 years ago

Its all gone quite, but keep the faith
Murf

mrs sharp

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2:28 AM, 11th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Just got my letter in from B o Ireland to say my mortgage rate will be up on 1st October 2013, works out at an increase of £60 per month since May 2013

Andy Jones

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13:07 PM, 11th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Any news on how its going with getting the BOI to reverse its decison on these mortgage hikes? Mine have already kicked in. How is Mr Selig getting on with things behind the scenes. I am still hopeful something good will come from it all. Would be good to hear any news

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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14:08 PM, 11th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Yes, progress is being made and Justin is now in regular contact with the FCA. However, he is currently locked into a non-disclosure agreement whilst discussions are in progress, hence his inability to say much here at the moment. For obvious reasons, not even I am privvy to the discussions Justin is having with the FCA. I'm just hoping that no news will turn out to be good news.

Andy Jones

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14:37 PM, 11th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "11/09/2013 - 14:08":

Thanks Mark, as you say "No news is good news", and we certainly can't have any non-disclosure laws being broken ! ha ha!! Anyway I have a good feeling about it this which I am not prone to so this fills me with hope. Thanks for the update much appreciated.

Eileen Lynch

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14:50 PM, 11th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "11/09/2013 - 14:08":

Mark, I am also anxious to hear of any developments because I have just agreed a sale of one of my properties. To date I have witheld the extra interest payment and am wondering how I should proceed when it comes to paying off mortgage. I emailed Justin with my query but now understand why he has not replied.

Justin Selig - solicitor

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21:45 PM, 17th September 2013, About 11 years ago

LEGAL ACTION UPDATE

I am writing to you to update you on events regarding the proposed action against the Bank of Ireland as a result of their increase in the differential charged on tracker mortgages.

Firstly I apologise for not coming back to you sooner, but up until now we had nothing to report.

As you will be aware, we prepared a very detailed case and submitted it to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) at the end of May 2013. We heard back quite quickly from the OFT stating that they and the FCA have overlapping jurisdiction so they agreed with the FCA that the FCA would look into this and not them. Since early June we have been in communication with the FCA regarding our case. They took a very long time to respond – the reason being is that they put our case to the Bank of Ireland and waited for them to respond. The Bank of Ireland obtained counsel’s opinion to deflect our arguments and then they sent that opinion to the FCA. The FCA said they would supply me with a copy of the opinion, provided that I kept its contents confidential. We have now had a formal response from the FCA, including a copy of the BOI’s counsel’s opinion. As I am bound by a confidentiality agreement, I cannot disclose the contents of BOI’s counsel’s opinion, but as a result of the opinion, the FCA has decided not to pursue this further.

We have now had an opportunity to look at the BOI’s case and we believe it is arguable either way. We have sent the opinion to our barrister to get his feedback – given that he prepared our case in the first instance.

Once we hear back from our barrister we will contact you again. The possible outcomes are that either the barrister says it is not worth pursuing, or he feels that we have a strong case to pursue. In the event that he thinks we have a strong case to pursue, we will launch a privately funded legal action against BOI based on our test case. If our test case is successful, then we will be able to apply that to a large number of other clients who have similar loans. The test case will not cover all the loans, and those with Bristol and West loans probably have a better chance of success than those with BOI originating loans. Obviously launching a privately funded action will be expensive – which is something I was trying to avoid, but it looks like we will have no choice. It will also have possible adverse costs consequences should the action not be successful. We are looking into ways to minimise the cost exposure and will come back to you once we have more information on this.

Now that we know where we are with regards to the FCA, we are now able to start to take action again. We are still expecting to hear back from the FOS and I will let you know as soon as we hear from them.

Regards

Justin

David Lawrenson

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11:06 AM, 18th September 2013, About 11 years ago

The Bank of Ireland is accused in this case of keeping key details hidden away in small print or not disclosing them at all. (In this case that that the mortgage rate could be "flexed away" from what borrowers thought was a fixed margin over the Bank of England's base rate).

I see no difference here with the Foxtons case, in which repeat renewal fees on letting contracts had been hidden from landlords in the small print by that letting agent and other agents.
Ulitmately Foxtons lost that case in the Appeal Court when Lord Justice Mann ruled that hiding away important terms acted as a "trap" to the detriment of consumers and was unfair.

This case should be actively pursued, not least because other lenders, most notably Barclays-Woolwich and NatWest will be watching this very carefully, as they will also be looking for a way to get out of base rate tracker deals that are now costing them a fortune, as we explain here:

http://www.lettingfocus.com/blogs/index.php/category/bank-of-ireland/

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

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11:19 AM, 18th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "David Lawrenson" at "18/09/2013 - 11:06":

I agree David, but it's easier said than done.

The risks are that the Class Action litigation fails in Court and the BoI is awarded legal costs.

I doubt that will ever happen but I only have the benefit of having read our Barristers opinion and the affected parties have not even had that. I have not, nor will I be able to see the BoI barristers opinions and neither will the affected borrers.

I suspect that a fighting fund in the region of £100,000 will have to be raised to fight the initial test case. If won, that will probably allow for all other cases to be fought on a no win no fee basis.

I hope this does go to trial now but that will depend on whether affected borrowers will be able to raise a sufficient fighting fund.

£100,000 is a lot of money!

To date around £10,000 has been raised and spent to get this far.

David Lawrenson

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12:00 PM, 18th September 2013, About 11 years ago

Thanks Mark,

Yes, I see what you mean.
Given the wider importance of this - and the fact that, in our opinion, the implications of BOI getting away with it goes beyond just the BOI mortgages, I wonder if other organisations interested in the welfare of landlords and other consumer groups too (as this matter is wider than just landlords) could be interested in supporting any further action that might be needed in the future.

I would have thought Which (for consumers) and the various landlord organisations (for landlords) would have an interest in this.... and from memory I seem to recall they may have been involved in going against Foxtons in that particular case, which, in the end, went all the way to the Appeal Court.

As there seems to be a really wide issue here re transparency in financial services and clarity of contracts, maybe it is coming to the time to get the wider national press onto the matter, I would have thought?

Lots of opportunity for 118 to be quoted by the Nationals.

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