West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "01/11/2013 - 14:41":

I recall it being said way back that WBBS were entitled to ask Experian how many BTL properties we have and it was quite OK for Experian to tell them. How this fits in with the rights we all have under Data Protection is a complete farcical mystery to me? Maybe Counsel will opine on this point? Meanwhile if Paul could challenge Experian about this I would be grateful to him and eagerly await learning what they say.

Not sure whether anyone else has received their reply from the FSA to the template e-mail regarding the Telegraph article but here is mine below:-

**MODERATORS NOTE**

All who wrote to the FCA have received the same response.

I have removed content from this post as the disclaimer on the FCA email makes it clear that their response must not be shared in public forum.

**MODERATION ENDED**

got one of ours today - same as the above; still awaiting any kind of a reply from George Osborne and Ed Milliband

Reply to the comment left by "Paul Eastabrook" at "01/11/2013 - 21:00":

Hi Paul

We have already use a substantial chunk of the marketing fund to write to a database of Financial Advisers and Mortgage Brokers which we rented from Experian.

We know that landlords have been referred to us as a result of that, however, many brokers are fearful of speaking out publicly against their regulatory body and mortgage lenders for obvious reasons. Ray Boulger from Charcols is in a relatively unique position of being incredibly well liked as the people champion by the media and is well protected by them. He is, therefore, safe to share his views whereas many smaller brokers feel vulnerable.

Solicitors may well feel different though we we do eventually write to them. This will not be until we have Counsels opinion. We may well be advising them to put their PI insurers on risk and asking them some very awkward questions as part of our strategy. If they agree with the WBBS stance they will incriminate themselves, if they disagree with the WBBS stance we have strong support and either way their PI insurers may well see that backing our campaign could be commercially beneficial to them in order to avoid the potential of multiple claims against their solicitor clients PI policies. All of this has been discussed previously in this discussion thread. I really do think it would be worth you reading through it all as clearly you want as much information as possible and armed with all information to date, and coming to this fired up but relatively late in the game you may well come up with some fresh ideas and question which lead to new thought processes.

I really appreciate your pro-activity since you found us last night.
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Reply to the comment left by "Paul Eastabrook" at "01/11/2013 - 14:01":

Hi Paul
My credit file with Equifax was searched by West Brom on the 21/09/2013,I thought
this was strange at the time,now I know know why ,did they have a right to do this, just to target me.

Reply to the comment left by "Denise Doms" at "01/11/2013 - 18:03":

When I wrote to West Brom, I pointed this out that I had paid a arrangement fees for this product to track for life the bank base rate and asked them to honour there agreement.
They replied they could do what they wanted as stated in there booklet and I was free to take my business elsewhere and anyway they could require me to repay the mortgages in four weeks,nasty nasty people.

Reply to the comment left by "martin bevan" at "02/11/2013 - 08:30":

Very interesting comment Martin and I have asked Justin to look into this again and possibly refer to Counsel.
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Reply to the comment left by "Graham Rock" at "01/11/2013 - 20:45":

Hi Graham

Welcome to Property118

I am sorry it has taken me so long to approve your first comment but I was out last night spending some quality time with my wife.

It is encouraging to hear that you were referred to us by your IFA.

I appreciate that is it a rather daunting prospect to read over 100 comments posted on this forum but I would strongly recommend you do so.

Many of the angles you are considering have been debated at length here. Therefore, reading through the thread will save you wasting time moving forwards and will also protect you from making bad decisions by understanding the consequences of actions which may appear logical but are not, e.g. cancelling your direct debit.

I look forward to engaging further, presumably you have completed the Expression of Interest Form embedded into the lead article above this forum discussion?
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We have had a constructive week, doing our own small bit to keep the campaign rolling.
1. Leaving comments on the Express and Star on-line newspaper regarding the West Bromwich new headquarters building. (Beats me how they can afford this given their desperate financial position...).

2. Had a meeting yesterday with our letting agents who have promised to contact all their landlords and mortgage broker contacts to bring the property118 campaign to their attention.

3. Sent the following letter to our local MP:

Dear Pete,
Many thanks for your letter of October 16th referring our matter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, from whom we have had no reply.
The situation that ourselves and thousands of other private landlords are facing is desperate and could ruin us, resulting in thousands of rental properties needing to be sold at very short notice, with massive disruption to thousands of hard-working, rent-paying tenants.
We signed up to toxic loan agreements with the West Bromwich Building Society, who have invoked a hidden clause in their Terms and Conditions requiring us to pay an extra 2% interest on our tracker mortgages – despite the fact that bank base rates have remained unchanged for years. We signed up to “bank base rate + .99% for the life of the mortgages, with no floor”.
1. The FCA have washed their hands of the problem because “Buy to Let mortgages are un-regulated”. So what is the point of having a Financial Conduct Authority?

2. The West Bromwich have failed to provide us with copies of our original signed loan agreements, despite letters and phone calls. They have failed to provide us with Personal data requests either.

We recognise that you are extremely busy, but would re-state that this is a desperate situation which could not only ruin us but also potentially make homeless thousands of honest tenants, who are unable to buy their own homes.
Is there a Treasury Select Committee who can help? Who is the Government Watchdog responsible for protecting individuals like us from unscrupulous lenders? After all the negative behaviour of Banks and Lenders over the last 10 years, how can it be possible that the West Bromwich can be allowed to get away with this?
I sincerely implore you to see if you can get this matter raised at the highest level of Government.
Yours sincerely,
etc. etc.

Let's see what next week brings!

Reply to the comment left by "Alexander Law" at "02/11/2013 - 15:01":

"The situation that ourselves and thousands of other private landlords are facing is desperate and could ruin us, resulting in thousands of rental properties needing to be sold at very short notice, with massive disruption to thousands of hard-working, rent-paying tenants."

Sounds rather OTT. In fact makes me cringe to be frank. Certainly not a way of garnering broad base of support. Wasn't that long ago was BOE base was 5%. LL's as a whole have benefited from the low BOE base rate, as all mortgage borrowers have done.

The real issue is the unilateral change in contract terms. Straying off the topic merely provides a distraction that ends up in a polarised debate.