West Bromwich Building Society Tracker Margins Legal Action

Sent 5 letters to West Brom and 1 to BOI. Copies sent to the following: Letter is below comment for those searching for the template letter

The Financial Ombudsman Service,
South Quay Plaza,
183 Marsh Wall,
London E14 9SR

Andrew Tyrie MP,
Chairman of the Treasury Committee,
7 Millbank,
House of Commons
London
SW1P 3JA

Mike Crockart MP
FREEPOST
4 Clifton Terrace,
Edinburgh
EH12 0PQ

Your name
Your address
Your Postcode
Your mortgage lender name
Address
Postcode

Dear Sirs
Mortgage Account Number: _______________________

I wish to raise an official complaint in respect of your treatment of my mortgage account on the basis that I do not believe that I have been treated fairly.

My understanding of the basis of this mortgage was that the rate would only ever vary when the base rate changed. You now seem to be telling me that you are able to adjust the tracker rate margin too. Had I known about this I would have chosen another mortgage product/lender.

I have been misled by your financial promotions and do not believe they meet the Financial Conduct Authority (previously the Financial Services Authority) principles of needing to be clear, fair and not misleading.

The following is the definition of a tracker mortgage West Brom BS on the West Brom Website the today.

“Tracker mortgages give you the certainty of knowing that the rate you pay will move in line with Bank Base Rates. We offer a choice of variable trackers, including flexible mortgages.”

The above explanation is being advertised by West Brom BS today at 01 Oct 2013
http://www.westbrom.co.uk/westbrom/mortgages.category?id=26

I have also been advised of case law which supports the requirement for important conditions to be made clear and obvious in contracts. That was definitely not the case in the mortgage documentation which you issued to me.

I also share the concerns voiced by Sarah Piggot, former lawyer for Shelter Housing and published in The Telegraph, with regards to the methods used to collect the information. If any data protection rules were breached I will be making an Information Commissioner complaint as well, which may well include the credit reference agency.

I have copied this letter to the Financial Ombudsman Service to put them on notice that I will be escalating my complaint to them if I am not satisfied with your response.

I understand that I am one of many thousands of affected customers and I will do all that I can to encourage as many as possible to fight you on this issue should you continue to be unreasonable.

I am also supporting a Class Action group which intends to combine resources and take a test case to formal litigation if required. In this regard, please send me copies of the following documentation:-

1. your mortgage offer letter to me and my signed acceptance
2. the mortgage deed relating to my account
3. your mortgage conditions booklet relevant to my mortgage

I await your response.

Your faithfully

Your Name

It will make a difference if every single person sends in a letter for every mortgage they have.
If their complaints department is suddenly swamped, and they can't handle the admin they'll start to take it seriously. Please send your letters today.

Great news about the FCA are looking into this scandal. I have sent my letters to anyone that will listen!

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "01/10/2013 - 22:11":

Mark, (great effort).
I believe the key aspect of the article referring to "Linda Woodall, director of supervision at the FCA" is the fact that the FCA declined to comment whether they had prior knowledge of the WBBS plans.
Any legal opinion WBBS would have received would have encouraged them to inform their key stake holders and umbrella regulators of such plans, i.e. The FCA.

As you know, the old FSA or current FCA are not know to provide clear Yes/No answers to any advice sought from them, so the clearest that WBBS lawyers could have possibly obtained from FCA is that although BTL are not regulated by them, that 'landlords' are somewhat further away from being protected by any FCA guides. Therefore, controversial as it may sounds, should we not be pressing Linda Woodall on what she/FCA knew about this and why they feel (if correct) the FCA can afford protection with individuals with 1 or 2 BTL's and not landlords with more than 1 or 2 BTL's in total ?
The key aspect of any advice WBBS have received seems to think they are ok to do this for multi unit landlords, therefore who is defining what a professional landlord is ? Is it the FCA and why should the increase not be considered possible for any mortgage holder with 1 BTL ? Therefore should we not be pressing The FCA for their clarification, as it currently stands and what we assume they were asked about months ago from the WBBS, about what their defining parameters are for which type of customers they afford some sort of protection to for "Non FCA regulated BTL's" and which ones they do not ?

If BTL's are not regulated by FCA, why then can FCA possible provide a distinction of customer types and perhaps start up the hype and pressure for FCA to disclose what they knew about WBBS plans and start to force them for clarification.

I see the Autumn Paper FCA refers to as something that would have been discussed post BOI saga as opposed to WBBS saga and perhaps a stalling tactic that will not serve ourselves too much help with timings.

Anybody any thoughts to the above ?

Reply to the comment left by "stuart marshall" at "02/10/2013 - 11:27":

Hi Linda

Both myself and Justin Selig are seeking to open up dialogue with Linda Woodall. You make some interesting points.

What is a "Consumer Landlord"? If we look at Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (UTCCRs) – the reference case is OFT vs Foxtons 2008 – see >>> http://www.oft.gov.uk/OFTwork/consumer-enforcement/consumer-enforcement-completed/foxtons/#.UkvdwdKsiM4 Whilst there is no precise definition of a “consumer landlord” in this or any other case which has set legal precedent, very few landlords are completely reliant upon living off their investments. For example, when I purchased a mortgage from WBBS I was a full time commercial finance broker who just happened to have invested into a large portfolio of BTL properties for my pension. WBBS seem to have taken the view that anybody with more than 3 properties isn’t a consumer landlord. This is a calculated risk on their part.

Advertising Standards and Financial Promotions regulations, specifically the principles of “clear, fair and not misleading”

The crux of the legal argument, from my layman perspective, is that WBBS terms facilitating their rights to increase tracker margins were buried in small print and also that their financial promotions were misleading – for example, see https://www.property118.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/West-Brom-Screen-Shot-21.png

Even if the first argument of Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 fails, the evidence supporting our second argument is overwhelming in my opinion.

Plan B could be to claim against the Professional Indemnity insurers of solicitors if they didn’t point out the relevance of the detrimental condition. If the solicitors practice is no longer trading then such a claim would need to be made against the solicitors compensation scheme. It is my opinion that there is a strong argument that solicitors were negligent in terms of failing to point out the relevance of the conditions now being relied upon by WBBS. My reasoning for making the claim against WBBS in the first instance is that it is far more effective to fight one opponent at a time.

Ideally the FCA or the FOS will be persuaded to fund the litigation, the OFT were consulted on the BoI case and they referred over to the FCA. None of these organisations have been consulted on the WBBS case yet as step one is to obtain Counsels opinion.
.

Reply to the comment left by "Gayle Jones" at "02/10/2013 - 10:59":

Not only will WBBS be inundated with a huge volume of complaints if each person sends a separate complaint for each individual mortgage account (which will require WBBBS to pay for increased resources in order to process the complaints within prescribed timeframes under FCA regulations), but they will also incur a £550 'Standard Case Fee' if each of these complaints is subsequently referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Every little helps!!!!

Thanks Mark, that is a really helpful summary. With respect to the idea of pursuing solicitors - is your advice that individuals should commence those enquiries of their solicitors NOW, or that we should wait?

The next point that I would like to bring up is the fact that both WBBS mortgages I hold were "re mortgages", i.e. the deal came with a FREE Legal Service.

My question is who was the ultimate client of the solicitor, was it me as a borrower or was it WBBS ? How impartial was the advice I was given by the FREE legal service and was it focussed for my best interests or the WBSS ?

The Solicitors who WBBS wanted me to use were "Enact Direct Legal Solutions, PO Box HK3, David Street, Leeds, LS11 5QJ.

Reply to the comment left by "Maxwell " at "02/10/2013 - 11:59":

My advice is to wait for advice from Justin, even for people with a strong legal background. There is an old saying amongst lawyers "a solicitor representing himself has a fool for a client".
.

Stuart we are in the same position. We have 3 WB mortgages and were sent an enticing offer to change to a particular tracker product . We paid a fee to remortgage internally with WB to this new offer. In my recollection the mortgages just slid over to the new arrangement without much paperwork, and certainly not with any involvement from our usual solicitors. This was in 2009.