ACT NOW to protect the margin on your YOUR tracker mortgage

Reply to the comment left by "Bernadette Lloyd" at "04/10/2013 - 09:30":

Hi Bernadette

You should have received several emails when you signed up, some of them will not be relevant as we have a systems issue we are working on. However, please do read them as they should answer all of your questions. If not, please come back to the forum.
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Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "04/10/2013 - 10:46":

Hi Mark - thanks - they were waiting for me in my mailbox. I'll get on with the actions now.

Thanks

Hi - I have just received Justin's letter and have a question about the amount payable to join the class action. The letter states that £240 is required 'per WBBS mortgage' plus possibly further funds in the future (presumably also 'per mortgage'). My question is: why is the charge by mortgage rather than by another measure or even 'by client'. Also, what would the implications be if those with, say, 3 mortgages only wanted to be represented by the class action for, say, 1 of those mortgages?

Reply to the comment left by "Adrian Todd" at "04/10/2013 - 16:19":

Hi Adrian

If we go to Class Action litigation we will be suing West Brom for compensation relating to specific accounts. You could sue for compensation on one or all accounts but if your claim is only based on one account then you will only receive compensation for that account. Also, if everybody only joins based on one account is is less likely that enough money will be raised to take the case to the High Courts and the Class Action could stall, as it has done on the BoI case due to lack of funding. We hope that our marketing campaigns will generate enough new interest to get the BoI Class Action back on track again but there are no guarantees. That said, nearly £3,000 has been donated to the marketing fund since we launched it 24 hours ago so I am feeling a lot more confident about recruiting enough interest by the minute.
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Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "04/10/2013 - 23:14":

Mark are you saying that £3k for the BoI or WB

Reply to the comment left by "ian " at "05/10/2013 - 00:36":

Hi Ian

Have a read of the article I've linked below this comment, that will explain.
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Thanks Mark
Very good idea, are you doing the same to solicitors & letting Agents LOL.
May I ask why post & not Email ?

Reply to the comment left by "ian " at "05/10/2013 - 10:54":

Hi Ian

Good questions.

We have been in the eMarketing business for over 20 years and we are also very closely affiliated to Google as one of their News feeds so we do have quite a lot of experience in this area.

It is not easy to obtain a clean email list of active mortgage brokers. Also, open rates of cold emails are 10% at best, click through rates are a fraction of that. The purpose of going “old school” on this occasion is the 100% delivery rate and the haunting effect of a physical letter which, at first glance, will appear to the secretary of a Mortgage Broker to be a complaint and should, therefore, attract high levels of attention.

My former business was a mortgage brokerage which ranked #38 in The Sunday Times Profit Track 100 when I retired, it was built from scratch on the back of internet marketing predominantly but we did use more traditional marketing mediums when the message was sufficiently important.

Solicitors could the the enemy here and as soon as we write to them they will realise the potential for that, i.e. we might be making a claim against their PI insurance. However, knowing solicitors, chances are the letter will just go into the bin as it's not an opportunity for them to make money. I have also worked in a law firm so I know how it works.

Letting agents are a possibility but there isn't really much of an angle to incentivise them to do much. The only one I can think of is fear of loss, i.e. landlords may decide to self manage if things get tight.

Mortgage brokers are an excellent target as the fear of loss for them is massive in terms of potential loss of credibility and also because one of the first things to get cancelled when times are tight are life insurance and pension payments, both of which result in loss of commission to them. Being helpful also triggers the opportunity of gain psychology, they may be referred to other landlords in the same predicament and those new landlords are new prospects for sales 🙂

The final point is that there are only so many hours in the day and we will have to prioritise based on time and financial resource. Hopefully people will donate generously and the latter will not be too much of an issue. We've had a reasonable start and there's just nearly £3,000 in the fund already so we have ordered the data and will be getting on with the first campaign in the coming week.

Thanks for your thoughts.
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Mark,

Not sure how busy Justin Selig is at present so am copying you my email response to him which I sent yesterday. It may assist other people to get answers and save him repeating himself. I want to pay in my £240 but am not clear on how it'd work and what we are contributing to exactly, See below text I sent to Justin,

Justin,

Thanks for your email, I’m keen to contribute to the fund but am confused by exactly what is being offered by yourselves,

I joined the property 118 forum a few days ago and therefore do not know any of you whereas many of the other forum members are more familiar with you and Mark Alexander and perhaps have built a relationship of trust with you, hence my questions.
I did try and call you but you were out and your voicemail was full, I’ll attempt to lay out some of my concerns and queries below

1) Are you a solicitor?
2) Are you offering to carry out the class action yourself? If not who are you suggesting?
3) What experience does the entity carrying out the Class action have?
4) Were these same people/yourself involved in the BOI class action? why do you think that stalled?
5) What happens if I contribute £240 and not enough money is received to progress past your steps 1-4? Do I get the money back or is it non returnable?
6) If the case progresses and we lose would I be liable for any further costs?
7) If the case progresses and we win what monies could I expect back (would we get the £240 back or would that be gone and we’d just not have to pay the additional 2.0% interest from 31st Dec 2013). I have read Mark Alexander’s email (quite a few times) of 3rd Oct about fee’s insurance and am still not 100% clear on the amounts of costs we’d have to pay if we did win – can you clarify and give some real world examples. I’m basically trying to pin down a worst case and best case scenario, even if it’s slightly ‘back of an envelope’ calculations.
8) Are you working on this FOC? If not what would you be charging to carry out all of your activities?

I’m hoping you’ll be able to get back to me soon and that your answers make sense so I can put my money in.

Reply to the comment left by "Andy Boothman" at "09/10/2013 - 11:56":

Andy

I have asked Justin to ignore direct emails and telephone calls as these are all charged back to the funds we raise and could very easily wipe them out before we get anywhere. My only role in the Class Action is to promote it's existence. I am also an affected borrower. A commission of 10% of fees billed by Justin comes back to Property118 to assist in the funding of the marketing of the class action. If I were to charge my time back to the project, which I'm not, I would be lucky to make minimum wage. I'm doing this because it is right and because I have a big following of landlords and I also have internet marketing skills which are vital to this project.

I will answer your questions to Justin for you:-

Q1) Are you a solicitor?
A1) Yes he is

Q2) Are you offering to carry out the class action yourself? If not who are you suggesting?
A2) Yes he is, he may also involve another law firm

Q3) What experience does the entity carrying out the Class Action have?
A3) Justin is registered with The Law Society to conduct this business. The barrister is considered by many to be the UK's leading banking barrister. He is based in Stone Buildings barristers chambers.

Q4) Were these same people/yourself involved in the BOI class action? why do you think that stalled?
A4) Yes, these are the same professional advisers, please see the Bank of Ireland thread for an explanation of why that case stalled and how it is planned to get it re-started.

Q5) What happens if I contribute £240 and not enough money is received to progress past your steps 1-4? Do I get the money back or is it non returnable?
A5) The money sits in a client account protected by CMP in accordance with Law Society rules. Justin's time and expenses (e.g. barristers fees) are charged to the client account. Any excess funds will be returned pro-rata. If the fund is exhausted the Class Action will stall.

Q6) If the case progresses and we lose would I be liable for any further costs?
A7) Stage 5 will not proceed until all costs are known, including re-insurance. You will be given a choice to continue or drop if we get to that point without having settled the case dispute. We hope to get enough people committed so that a further call for funds will not be required to proceed to stage 5. Only time will tell.

Q7) If the case progresses and we win what monies could I expect back (would we get the £240 back or would that be gone and we’d just not have to pay the additional 2.0% interest from 31st Dec 2013). I have read Mark Alexander’s email (quite a few times) of 3rd Oct about fee’s insurance and am still not 100% clear on the amounts of costs we’d have to pay if we did win – can you clarify and give some real world examples. I’m basically trying to pin down a worst case and best case scenario, even if it’s slightly ‘back of an envelope’ calculations.
A7) It is not possible to answer this question in any more detail than has already been provided at this time.

Q8) Are you working on this FOC? If not what would you be charging to carry out all of your activities?
A8) Justin will be billing his normal charging rate which is £250 per hour plus VAT
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